


Worthy Of A Sequel

by sksai



Series: Worthy Of A Crush Universe [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Not really a pynch fic, Past Abuse, Past Internalized Homophobia, Tad is the star of the show, Worthy Of A Crush Universe, but they do have a lot of mentions and a scene all to themselves, one instance of homophobic language, the rest of the ships are a secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 16:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11993499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sksai/pseuds/sksai
Summary: the long awaited sequel to my fic: Worthy Of A Crush. The gang's all back! But Tad, specifically.





	Worthy Of A Sequel

**Author's Note:**

> This is such a wild thing to be posting. I really thought I would never finish this project, two and a half years in the making dlgkjdkdskg. I really hope you guys enjoy it. I worked harder than I've worked in a long time: OCS ARE HARD!!!!!!!!! but it was all worth it (hehhhh) in the end to be able to publish something that is very special to me and something I (hope??????) will make people happy. Enjoy, and remember: the point is that it's dumb. <3

Tad Carruthers was not going to screw this up. Second chances were not a thing that came by often. Especially for him. And as much as he had ached for Martin to reach out to him, he never actually thought it would happen. He may have entertained an unhealthy number of fantasies about being startled out of bed at three in the morning to answer a pounding door that revealed his ex-boyfriend, soaked with rain, who would then wrap his arms around him and apologize profusely and something along the lines of "I couldn't stay away" or "I just had to see you" or anything else that could double as a lyric in a radio hit pop country song. Tad didn't care. He just wanted him back. But the fantasies were meant to be just that. Stories he told himself to get through another lonely, sleepless night. He wasn't stupid enough to truly hope for it. Almost, but not quite.

When Martin had finally come knocking it been in the proverbial sense. A text message informing Tad that Martin had an important get-together coming up. Some potential producers that were interested in his screenplay. He wanted to make a good impression and did Tad think he could whip up something for the occasion?

It was a weird text. The phrasing, the timing, the lack of any sort of social nicety as a preamble or postscript. It was the exact kind of thing Martin did while they were dating. So, what did that mean? Was this Martin's way of telling Tad if he pulled this off for him, they could make it work? Try again? Was Martin  _already_  trying? Was this his way of making that first move? It certainly seemed that way. That kind of entitled vagueness of acting as if they were back together without any kind of confirming conversation beforehand was just the sort of thing Martin would do.

Tad's heart thrummed with excitement.  _Of course_ , he had texted back without even pausing to think about the implications of his blind agreement.  _What did you have in mind?_

Tad wasn't very good at cooking. He was passable at cooking the type of food that uncultured people didn't eat very often. And that was Tad being generous with himself. In truth, he butchered his grandmother's Greek recipes so heinously that he had no doubt she rolled over in her grave every time someone complimented him on his spanakopita.

As a child, he'd taken to hiding out in the kitchen with her during big family gatherings that overwhelmed him. She was quick to put him to work, probably harboring big dreams of making him her culinary protégé. Even as hopeless as Tad was, she never got frustrated with him, never sent him away. She was one of those old ladies that Tad couldn't picture ever being anything  _but_  an old lady. He was sure she'd come into the world with wispy silver hair piled high on her head, tan weathered skin, abundantly wrinkled with infinite wisdom. He'd never even seen a picture of her from when she was young, not even at her funeral, which only solidified his theory.

She used to tell him the only secret to being a good cook was patience. He'd only very embarrassingly recently realized she'd told him that so he would keep quiet and stay still while she worked. Tad enjoyed it, though. The process of it all. Finding the right recipe. Gathering all the ingredients. Measuring and weighing and mixing. The anticipation of how it would turn out. He was confident, even amidst the revelation of his grandmother's deep betrayal, that eventually if he'd produce something magnificent, worthy of her memory. It was a little overdramatic. They weren't even close. It wasn't as if she was the kind of grandmother who knitted sweaters and doled out forehead kisses. She was actually kind of mean. Her nickname for Tad, if it could be called that, wasn't something he could repeat in polite company. But she'd paid attention to him and given him somewhere to hide, and Tad would always appreciate that. And when she'd died, she'd left Tad her entire box of handwritten recipes. That had even gotten an eyebrow raise out of his elderly uncle, which was the most explicit display of emotion he'd ever seen from him. Everyone knew his grandmother was psychotic about those recipes. She wouldn't even let Tad look at them while he helped her out as a kid. She just verbally dictated it all to him. He didn't know what he'd been expecting when he finally got the chance to see them with his own eyes. They were virtually useless. Impossibly tiny, shaky, slanted scrawl. Sparse directions. Written in some kind of shorthand only his grandmother could understand. Still, he liked to have them. It was an acknowledgment that he was favored, special. In some way that made sense only to his grandmother. Not that he got to flaunt the fact, since after her death his mother had no pressing reason left to visit and their holidays were spent almost exclusively with his father's side of the family. That was when everything really started to go downhill, according to Tad. His paternal grandmother didn't cook. His paternal grandfather was terrifying. His cousins were all leagues younger than him, screeching little monsters. The only time his aunts and uncles acknowledged him was to ask about his grade point average. And also, Scottish food sucked.

Tad's hands were curled into semi permanent claws. He had to sit and flex them for a few minutes until the cramps eased their way out through his fingertips. The moussaka had just gone into the oven and, fuck, it was perfect. He knew he shouldn't judge it until after it came out. Ovens were wild and unpredictable things and his attempts returned to him burnt and bubbling over more often than not. But he'd never felt this way about something he'd created before. It was the same kind of feeling he got from scrolling through columns and columns of the same photo in his camera roll before he landed on the one. The one that made him stop short, hold his breath, and just look. No filters or post production necessary.

Once the blood was flowing freely in his fingers again, he typed out a proud text message to Martin, so high on himself that he even added a teasing flirtatious edge to it about making Martin wait to see it in person.

_Oh_ , Martin texted back.  _Wait. I'm confused. Didn't we talk about you doing a dessert?_

Tad's heart did the thing hearts did when you saw a shadow out of the corner of your eye and your body reacted before your brain could process what you were seeing. He managed to keep his hands steady as he typed out his reply. He even scrolled up to their earlier messages about it and sent Martin a screencap of him simply telling Tad to "surprise him".

_Huh._  Was all Martin said in response. Tad knew this was the part where he was supposed to apologize, so he did.

_It's okay_ , Martin replied, which meant it wasn't.  _It's just that I really needed a dessert and I don't have anything. People are going to start showing up in a couple hours. I'm totally stressed now. I was really counting on that from you._

_I'll just figure something else out_ , he added in a separate message.

Tad's brain was already spin cycling through possible solutions. He had to fix this. He had to. If he could fix this, Martin would be impressed and thankful and start thinking about what a good boyfriend Tad was and how much he missed him, probably.

**Melomakarona don't take that long to make** , Tad suggested. **I could get those to you in 2 hours or less, definitely.**

_I don't know what that means_ , Martin replied immediately. Tad blinked in confusion before realizing he meant the food. Tad shook his head. He'd made them for Martin tons of times. He sent him a picture to remind him.

_Oh, yeah, those weird cookie things. Sure, that works._

Tad couldn't help but smile. Martin was such an airhead, sometimes. A beautiful, blonde, Achillean airhead that Tad was going to spend the rest of his life with. His heart buoyed in his chest as he cracked his aching knuckles and begged his mean dead grandmother for strength and baking prowess. He had work to do.

"Well hello there, stranger," Martin greeted Tad with a solid clap on the shoulder. The large containers of food in Tad's hands teetered precariously as he stumbled into the familiarly unfamiliar living room of Martin's apartment. His veins pumped with memories. The first time he'd sat on the worn in navy blue sofa, going through Martin's photography portfolio with him. The way it felt, when their knees knocked together and Martin leaned into it instead of pulling away, gushing over Tad's long exposures and telling him he just  _had_  to teach him all his secrets, and Tad had realized for the first time in his life that a boy was flirting with him. His insides hummed like a light bulb that was ready to burst.

"What's this?" Martin lifted up the tinfoil covering the moussaka, as Tad set the dishes he'd brought onto Martin's kitchen island, and wrinkled his nose.

Tad had made this for Martin before, too, but he explained the dish in great detail, anyway. Martin's expression smoothed into one of poised neutrality, waiting for Tad to finish talking.

"It was what I was making before I texted you and you told me to do dessert instead," Tad smirked, boldly nudging his ex possibly soon to be reinstated boyfriend in the ribs.

Martin let out a short scoff that rolled into a chuckle and Tad knew he'd done well.

"Seriously, thanks for all this," Martin told him with a heavy sigh. "I've been so fucking stressed about this party all week. There's a producer who wants to talk about my screenplay and—"

"I know," Tad smiled fondly at him. "You told me. That's so great! I told you all your hard work was gonna pay off eventually."

Martin's lips thinned into a lopsided slash of displeasure. "Wow. What have I been doing without you here to remind me of all the things I've apparently forgotten?"

Tad laughed, as was his natural reaction to such a statement, and said, "I'm good for something, after all."

Martin laughed again, his frown melting away so quickly Tad couldn't stake his life on whether it had ever been there in the first place.

Martin raised an arm to check the time on his watch. "Well," he clapped his hands together. "People should be arriving soon."

Tad nodded. "Cool."

Martin licked his lips, tilted his head to the side, as if he was waiting for Tad to say something else. Tad's palms were starting to sweat. What was he missing, here? What did Martin want from him?

"Are you still living in the dump?" Martin asked, his upper lip twitching in amusement. That was what he'd dubbed Tad's small Brooklyn apartment the first time Tad had him over. Tad rolled his eyes and nodded.

"Nice," Martin nodded back, hands clasped together as he gestured toward the dishes. "So I can just mail these to you when I'm done with them?"

Tad's eyebrows crawled toward each other. "Um," he spoke before his brain could catch up. "Yeah. Sure."

"Great," Martin smiled, as if this were a huge weight that had been lifted off his shoulders. "Thanks again. It was good to see you."

Tad had the sudden sensation that he was in one of those nightmares where you realize you've shown up to an important event completely naked and you're trying to think of ways for no one to notice, because that makes all the logical sense in a dream. He felt himself nodding again, his throat was squeezed too tight to speak. He felt his feet pivot and his knees bend and saw Martin's front door getting closer and closer. His body understood what was happening before the rest of him did.

Martin hadn't been using food as an excuse to text Tad, or the party as one to invite him over. Tad was so completely and utterly  _not invited_  to the point where Martin hadn't even thought he would need to provide that information. He'd just been asking for a favor. A simple, platonic favor. Tad was, in no uncertain terms, a fucking idiot. The biggest fucking loser idiot that had ever had the misfortune to walk this fucking earth.

"Oh, Tad, hold on, don't go!"

Tad's hand paused on the doorknob. And time paused with it. Martin was behind him and Tad's chest unconstricted. He turned around, ready to fall into those stupid, oblivious arms, only to see they were already taken by the dish full of moussaka.

"On second thought," Martin threw him an apologetic wince. "Go ahead and take this one. I've already got an entree dish and this doesn't really fit the theme. Thanks, though."

"No problem," Tad said, accepting the dish with rocks in his throat. He cleared it and fixed a polite, detached smile onto his face. "Good luck with the producer."

Martin grinned and shrugged his shoulders, silently coy in reply, and shut the door in Tad's face.

*******

At least he wasn't crying on the subway, again. He'd already done that the first time Martin had dumped him. An old lady even came and sat next to him and patted his knee before she told him to shut the fuck up because she was trying to read. As the moussaka cooled in his lap, he was fantasizing about getting hit by a car or shot in a mugging gone awry. Martin would be distraught by the news, sobbing over Tad's unconscious body as he lay in a hospital bed, hanging onto life by a thread. Sometimes Tad would make a miraculous recovery and Martin would take this second chance to be the perfect boyfriend this time around, and they lived happily ever after. Sometimes Tad tragically slipped away and Martin mourned celibately for the rest of his life, guilty and heartbroken over the love he'd lost.

To ice the shitcake of Tad's fuckday, a homeless guy was camped outside his apartment. Again. He just wanted to roll himself up in a burrito of blankets and listen to  _Illinois_  on repeat until he'd convinced himself that slitting his wrists would be painful and messy and traumatizing for whoever found him. Was that so much to ask?

Tad used his foot to nudge at the sleeping stranger curled around a large duffel bag—probably a junkie—greasy dark hair clung to their head, an oversized shredded sweater hung from their bony shoulders. "Excuse me," Tad tried to sound as polite as he possibly could, but his sanity was fraying at the edges. The man stirred and lifted his head. "I'm sorry, but you can't sleep here. I need to get into my apartment."

The man startled, then whipped his head around, only to relax when his gaze landed on Tad.

"Thaddeus," he greeted him with a saccharine smile. "Long time no see."

No one had called Tad that since his grandmother died. It was a family name on his mother's side and his dad had only agreed to it on the grounds that it could be shortened to Tad, which he liked much better.

It was at this point that Tad realized the man's hair wasn't greasy, but slicked down to his skull like that with utmost purpose.

"Sebastian," Tad blinked at the man he hadn't seen since, he didn't know, maybe his high school graduation? The next logical question would have been  _what are you doing here_? but Tad, who'd known Sebastian since he was an unfortunately small child, found other things to be more confusing. "What  _happened_  to you?"

Sebastian hopped up, standing a full head and a half taller than Tad's meager five feet and eight inches. "What do you mean?"

Tad gestured at Sebastian's torn up sweater. "Did you get in a fight with an ugly stepsister or what?"

"How dare you," Sebastian shot back coolly. "Lizzie got her teeth fixed and finally accepted her pink undertones. She's like, a six and half now, at least."

"And this," he preened, a fitting gesture, considering his large dark eyes and sharp cheekbones and hooked nose that had never quite settled properly, gave him a more birdlike than human appearance. "This is a genuine Yeezy."

"Okay," Tad replied, still slowly piecing together the puzzle that was blocking the entrance to his apartment.

"What's that?" Sebastian asked, nodding to moussaka Tad was still holding.

"Nothing," Tad answered, embarrassed to have his shame acknowledged, even if it was only evident to him. "Just some food."

"Oh, thank God!" Sebastian's shoulders slumped in relief. "I'm starving." He hoisted his bag up onto his shoulder and turned to open the door to Tad's apartment.

"Hey!" Tad startled. "What the fuck?"

"The door was, like, wide open when I got here," Sebastian explained patiently. "I closed it for you. You're welcome."

Tad didn't have time to be flustered at his disastrous mistake because he was too busy trying to slide together the Rubik's cube that was Sebastian Alexander Hawthorne IV. "Why didn't you just wait inside, then?"

Sebastian's whole face dropped in abject horror, like Tad had just transformed himself into a hideous beast right before his very bird-like eyes. "Well," he sniffed, the too big sweatshirt slipping down off his unstrapped shoulder. "That would have been incredibly rude."

"This is absolutely divine," Sebastian moaned around an unsightly mouthful of half chewed food. Tad simply watched him from the opposite end of his tiny "dining room" table, chin resting over his crossed arms. "Is all take-out in New York like this?"

It took a moment for Tad to realize what Sebastian was asking. He laughed at his mistake. "That's not take-out. It's homemade."

"Ah." Sebastian paused before shoving his fork back into his mouth. "My compliments to the chef, then."

Tad scoffed. "Thanks."

Sebastian choked and for one terrifying second Tad thought he was going to have to do something about it. He coughed it all down and fixed Tad with a dubious look. "You made this?"

Tad nodded. "It's one of my yiayia's recipes."

"Right," Sebastian nodded. "The ones you inherited when she died."

Tad couldn't believe Sebastian remembered that. It was one of the secrets he'd traded in back in the day. It was a game, of sorts, Sebastian had made up. He collected secrets like Yu-Gi-Oh cards and whenever he had something that someone else wanted he'd say, "I'll give it to you...for a secret" and little pre-pubescent dumbasses ate it right up. The better the secret, the better the prize, and only Sebastian held the power to decide what was worthy of what. "Thaddeus" and its origin story had gotten Tad a 25 dollar Amazon giftcard. It was one of the last conversations he'd ever had with Sebastian. Of any sort of value, anyway. Their mothers ran in the same crowd, had since high school, and they'd spent a fair amount of time together as children. But as the boys around Tad grew into men they started to notice things they didn't like about Sebastian, and other boys growing into men like him. Until one day Walker Johnson just came out and said it.

"You really hang around with that fag?"

The question rattled Tad's bones. That word, the way it ripped out of Walker's mouth, like he was tearing an unwanted page out of an otherwise perfectly good book. He hated the sound of it. Hated the way it made sweat drip down the back of his legs. It made him feel sick. He couldn't imagine being Sebastian, being so different that people noticed, that people made decisions about you because of it.

And so Tad made his own decision. He shook his head and said, "No!" like he couldn't even entertain the idea. He laughed along with the other boys when they made fun of him. And any other boys like him. He'd roll his eyes good naturedly when the accusation was thrown his way, tossing it back like it was all just a fun-loving game of hot potato.

Sebastian never seemed very bothered by it. The other boys or Tad's betrayal. He still smiled politely in greeting at Tad on the off chance they passed each other in the hallways, like they'd always been casual acquaintances and never shared any secrets. Like, for instance, when ten year old Sebastian had boasted that no secret could be worth his shiny new GameBoy he'd been gifted for Christmas. It was a trap. Sebastian didn't even like video games. He said they were boring and gave him headaches. But Tad had taken the bait, the ultimate dumbass. He'd written out a single sentence in Sebastian's agenda book and slid it over to him. Right there in the margins of January 11th, it read:  _I would rather kiss a boy than a girl._ He saw no harm in this at the time, no consequence. Sebastian was the Secret Keeper. He took pride in holding other people's secrets, not giving them away. And as expected, he'd said nothing, just silently slid the GameBoy over to Tad as payment. Tad felt victory wash over him, until he remembered that he didn't like video games, either. He ended up selling the GameBoy to a local pawn shop for an old polaroid camera, instead. So it wasn't a complete waste.

When Sebastian started getting hassled, he could have sold Tad up the river any time he wanted to. He had it in writing, for fuck's sake. The turn of the tables would have been astronomical. Sebastian's proclivities would have been completely absolved for that kind of valuable information. Tad had secured his place as  _one of the guys_. An outed traitor in their midst would have been the most condemnable plot twist of their lifetimes.

Maybe Sebastian just didn't remember. Or didn't care enough to involve himself in the drama. It all kind of fizzled out by the time they were full fledged teenagers, anyway. There were rumors about other boys at school. But they were passed around in a less venomous and more shallowly nosy kind of way. When people talked about Sebastian it was now to gush about the win he'd help secure for the tennis team and how he was damn near good enough to go pro if he wanted. People were willing to forgive what they didn't like about you if you had something else about you of value to them. People wanted to be associated with people who won things, who had bright futures ahead of them.

All Tad had was his fake loyalty and his shitty secrets. And he couldn't afford to give any more up.

"Anyway," Sebastian was saying to him now. He was long-windedly filling Tad in on the events that had led him to the whole sleeping outside his doorstep thing. His parents had officially cut him off. They weren't going to pay his rent, his car payments, his monthly allowance, any of it. The option was to come back home and sort himself out or, find someone else to provide for him.

"So I went down the list of all the gays I could hit up from our dear alma mater. Cheng's out of the country. Lynch, my God, do you know Lynch is married? With a  _child_?" Sebastian bugged his eyes out on this word and paused for a moment of solemn silence, as if he was describing a horrible car crash. Tad only nodded. On occasion, when he'd had a few too many glasses of wine, he entertained himself by Facebook stalking Ronan and Adam Lynch, for a multitude of masochistic reasons.

"Davenport's a lost fucking cause," Sebastian went on, shaking his head in disbelief. "Lifetime closet case. I'm surprised he hasn't made it to Narnia yet."

"Wow," Tad was surprised to hear that. "Really? That's...sad."

"You know he told me he's training to be a fighter pilot?" Sebastian scoffed. "I said Brock the only thing you want to fight is the Lord for making you gay as blazes."

Tad couldn't help but snort. "You really said that?"

"Obviously not," Sebastian slit his eyes at him. "But it went without saying."

The end of this story, it seemed, was that Tad had unwittingly won the potential gay roommate lottery.

"Don't you have any straight friends?" Tad asked him, befuddled by Sebastian's nonsensical actions, as always.

"Not any I'd be able to _live with_ ," Sebastian recoiled at the thought. "Heterosexual energy gives me migraines."

"I can pay you back as soon as Karen and Frank get over themselves," Sebastian told Tad, referring to his parents by the fake first names he gave them when he was annoyed with them. Not much about Sebastian had changed over the years. It was like Sebastian had been born into this world his fully developed self and that was the end of that. Tad could not relate. He was twenty-three years old and he felt like he hadn't even figured out how to start having a self yet.

"It won't take too long for them to crack," Sebastian continued, as if Tad had already invited him to stay. "Never does. They're spineless."

Tad knew what it was like to be kicked out. And he knew Sebastian knew he knew. Everyone back home knew. He wondered if that was why he was so sure Tad wouldn't turn him away. If so, he was underestimating Tad's apathy for others. But by some sick strike of luck, Tad didn't have it in him to pass on the buck of rejection tonight.

"I'm tired," he told Sebastian. "I'm gonna head to bed. But, um, there's the couch. The bathroom's over there. I don't really have much food right now. I'll have to go grocery shopping tomorrow."

"Nighty night, Tadpole. Thanks for letting me stay."

Tad nodded wordlessly, he deserved his bed and sad music and privacy and nothing was going to stop him from achieving it.

"So did you ever get around to it?" Sebastian asked, scraping at the bottom of the dish he'd devoured. "Kissing a boy."

Tad's face flushed red hot. He didn't know why. They were adults and none of it mattered anymore. He thought of every kiss with Martin. How much those memories mattered to him and how much they did not matter to the person he shared them with. He thought of his first kiss. Which he did not like to remember, at all, as it was his single most thrilling and embarrassing memory of all time. Nothing would ever top it, for better or worse.

"Yeah," Tad sighed, resigned to his miserable fate as a permanent loser. "Unfortunately."

Sebastian nodded sagely, plopped his fork into the now empty dish. "Yum. Bet your whatever that Greek word you said for what I can only assume based on context clues means grandma would be proud."

Tad scoffed in polite thanks, but he knew this was patently untrue. If his grandmother could see him right now, she would probably skip over being scandalized about his perverted homosexual ways, or embarrassed at his pathetic shamble of a life, and simply tell him he'd used too much salt before disappearing back into the ether of the afterlife.

*******

Tad regretted telling Sebastian it was time for him to help with the grocery shopping. He'd just wanted another pair of hands to be help with the bags, but he felt like he was wrangling a small child. Sebastian had never been inside a grocery store before and he couldn't stop whizzing around and picking things up to ask Tad what they were or how they were supposed to transform into edible food.

"Have you really never cooked anything, at all, ever?" Tad couldn't believe it. He knew Sebastian was a few rungs below royalty rich but, still. "Watched your mom cook, even?"

"Rachel doesn't cook," Sebastian replied, giving his mother another fake first name. They were still on the outs, of course. Tad had gathered Sebastian was some sort of massive parental disappointment and overall delinquent, but he remembered his parents as really nice and laid back people. But maybe that was how Tad's parents had seemed from the outside looking in. He almost felt sorry for himself, then. But he didn't think that was allowed. There were parents who beat their children, who abandoned them. Tad's parents may have kicked him out and cut off all contact with him, but they were still paying his phone bill and his bank account stayed replenishing every month, enough for him to pay his rent and live on comfortably. And so he squashed down the bitterness and hurt any time it rose up inside him. His parents were still taking care of him, showing they cared, in their own way. That had to count for something.

As a desperate attempt to keep Sebastian at his side while he tried to shop and not worry that he was knocking over something expensive somewhere, Tad finally relented and told Sebastian about what had happened with Martin and the moussaka on the day Sebastian had arrived. Sebastian had been begging for the tragic tale for days and Tad told it with all the necessary drama it required.

"I have a question," Sebastian said when he'd finished.

"What?" Tad raised an eyebrow, wary of what was to come.

"Can I take back my promise not to make fun of you?"

Tad rolled his eyes. "No."

"That is, like, Shakespearean proportions of dramatic irony and secondhand embarrassment."

"The worst part is, he never mailed back my dish."

Sebastian gasped. "No!"

Tad nodded, smiled wanly at the cashier as he grabbed his reusable grocery sacks and passed one to Sebastian, who took it without complaining. He was too wrapped up in the drama of it all to notice hard labor was being forced upon him.

"We have to get it back."

"Huh?"

"The dish!" Sebastian hissed, like it was a secret and there was anyone could possibly be listening.

"Like I'm really gonna call up my ex to ask for my dish back," Tad snorted. "Even I am not that pathetic, Seb."

Sebastian leveled his gaze at him.

"Okay, fine, I am that pathetic." Tad pouted. "But at least I'm not stupid enough to actually follow through with the urge!"

"I never said anything about asking for it back," Sebastian grinned conspiratorially. "You have to take what's yours with fire and blood, Thaddeus."

"I don't know what that means," Tad shook his head.

"You're alarmingly pop culture illiterate," Sebastian sighed, disappointed as ever. At least it wasn't as dramatic as the time Tad had informed him he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about whenever he brought up RuPaul's Drag Race. He'd been forced to sit through multiple episodes until he'd told Sebastian he couldn't stand the sound of Alaska's voice and he didn't get what the big deal was about Alyssa at all and Sebastian told him he was never allowed to watch it ever again.

"I just don't watch the weird shit you do," Tad argued back, his muscles aching from the heavy grocery bags digging painfully into his shoulders.

"You watch straight people shows," Sebastian agreed. "Like New Girl."

"New Girl is funny," Tad scoffed. "You didn't even give it a chance."

"I found the humor dated and reductive."

"Cause it was, like, the first season!"

"Whatever!" Sebastian moaned. "Who cares. How are we gonna get the dish back?"

"We're not," Tad shook his head.

"You shouldn't have pointed out his apartment complex to me," Sebastian warned, fumbling to fish his phone out of his back pocket, grocery bag still in hand. It was the one thing his parents were still paying for, in case contact was needed for an emergency. "I'll just do it myself."

"You don't know what number he's in—"

"Hi!" Sebastian was speaking high pitched and robotically into his phone. "This is Daryl with FedEx calling, I have a package with me for a resident by the name of Martin Meyer, but the apartment number's illegible. Is there any way you can confirm–Great, thanks."

Tad gaped at him. Sebastian trilled another thank you and hung up. "Got it."

"I don't believe you," Tad sneered. "There's no way an apartment would just give up someone's information–"

Sebastian was already crossing the street, Tad had to jog to catch up to him. "People will tell you anything if you ask for it in a confident voice. Especially if you tell them your name is Daryl."

"I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about," Tad growled. "As usual."

"No one would ever expect someone named Daryl to be lying. Especially about being named Daryl."

"How do you think you're going to get in?" Tad asked, he couldn't believe he was even engaging with this insanity. "What if he's home?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Sebastian chirped, holding his phone out in front of him like it was a sword and he was a brave knight on a mission.

"We?!" Tad shouted after him. "I'm not helping you get yourself arrested!"

But when they got there it took only a few minutes of Sebastian frantically googling 'how to pick a lock', his dark eyebrows knit together in intense concentration, for Tad to feel a traitorous rush of fondness at the fact that Sebastian was actually going to go through with this just to get his dish back. "Oh, forget it." He sighed. "I still have a key."

Martin wasn't home, of course, Tad still knew his schedule, and they found the dish sitting unwashed beside the sink, caked with dried butter and dusted with crumbs. Sebastian was still holding the dish up in his hands triumphantly when they heard the door creak open and footsteps clatter into the living room. Sebastian froze, an utter deer in the headlights, and Tad shoved him roughly into Martin's walk-in pantry and shut the sliding door behind them. It was an impossibly tight squeeze, with the two of them in there, three grocery bags smashed between them, and the goddamn dish. They stood there like statues, staring widely in mirrored horror into each other's eyes until the sound of footsteps ascending up the stairs allowed them to breathe out.

"Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god," Sebastian panted through his teeth.

"Shut up!" Tad hissed. "Okay. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna put the dish back and sneak back out. You keep the bags. That way if he catches me I can just, I don't know, play it off as some kind of pathetic desperate ex boyfriend thing. And while he's distracted, you can get out with the bags."

"Wait, no," Sebastian whispered back. "You take the bags. That way you can just be like, oh, I was in the neighborhood, shopping, and decided to stop by. And get  _my dish_. That sounds more normal. And then I'll be able to sneak faster."

"Good point," Tad was surprised to agree, shifting the third bag from Sebastian's shoulder onto his as quietly as he could. He nodded once to his partner in crime. Sebastian saluted him in return. He made it out of the apartment unnoticed and was so ready for relief to flood his veins until he saw Sebastian come out after him, with the dish.

"Sebastian!" He all but shrieked. "You were supposed to leave the dish!"

"What are you talking about?" Sebastian asked way too loudly. "This is what we came for!"

"Put it back," Tad commanded, like he was chastising a child.

Sebastian clutched it close to his chest. "I'm not leaving it behind."

Footsteps sounded at the stop of the stairs. "Hello?" Martin's voice echoed downward. "Is somebody there?"

Sebastian badly concealed a high pitched squeal and darted out of the apartment. Tad had no choice but to follow, grocery bags smacking against him as he ran, both of them screaming madly down the street. They didn't stop to breathe until they were blocks away. Bent over and bracing his whole upper body on his knees, Sebastian was the first to laugh. And then Tad dissolved into what could only be described as a hysterical fit of giggles.

"That was," he panted, painfully out of breath, "the stupidest thing," he sucked in air, "I've ever done."

"We did it!" Sebastian whooped, holding up the dirty dish like a trophy. "Oh my God! Holy shit! That was fucking incredible. We're real life vigilantes. Making the law up as we go."

They celebrated by eating freshly baked brownies out of the dish later that night, and Tad rewarded Sebastian for his bravery and commitment to justice by allowing the nightly television show to be one of Sebastian's choosing

But Sebastian refused, upon his honor, and told Tad that he was instead rewarding  _him_  for his 'unwavering loyalty in the face of danger' by vowing to finish an entire season of New Girl without complaining. Sebastian kept coming up with ridiculously unfunny puns about dishes and running away and Tad nearly threw up from laughing so hard at how stupid it all was. As sad as it was to admit, it was one of the best days he'd had in a really long time.

*******

"You're a terrible host, you know," Sebastian told Tad as he shoved the remaining week's worth of laundry into a machine and closed it.

"You're a terrible guest," Tad scoffed. Sebastian just had that air about him, that he would be messy, and Tad had been expecting as much. But he was a goddamn pig. He left food crusted plates and bowls everywhere. He never cleaned up after himself. He just threw things about, like it was inherently not his job to deal with the consequences.

"Okay," Sebastian clapped his hands together, unfazed by Tad's comment. "What do I do now?"

Tad wanted to be annoyed and embarrassed on Sebastian's behalf. But when he'd been thrown out on his own he'd had to google 'how to do laundry' and watch a 20 minute comprehensive video tutorial before he'd finally gotten the hang of it.

"I want to do something fun," Sebastian told him as they sat in tiny, uncomfortable chairs, waiting for their clothes to dry.

"Then do it," Tad told him, not looking up from his phone. He was self-harm-stalking the Lynches again. They were on vacation in Ireland. Their kid was getting huge. She looked like a teenager now. Tall and sinewy, like a runway model in training. He thought it was nice they'd adopted one that wasn't a baby. People were always saying those were the kids that needed homes the most. "No one's stopping you."

"Going out by yourself is lame," Sebastian whined, crossing his arms like a chagrined toddler. "Plus, you owe me."

Tad looked up at that, utterly bewildered. "Excuse me?"

"I've done the dishes  _twice_  in a row this week!" Sebastian balked, completely beside himself.

"You are crashing at my place, totally rent free, eating all my food and stealing my wifi, you know that, right?"

"It's gauche to flaunt your wealth," Sebastian winced at him. "Besides, you need to get out even more than I do. You're wasting your youth, pining away over that puddle of hot dog water. You need to go out and get yourself a nice rebound."

Tad flushed at the thought. Martin had been his first...everything. Well, not  _everything_. But his first date. His first boyfriend. His first sexual partner. And there hadn't been anybody since. They were together for so long, Tad had just thought: well, this is it. I found my person. Sorted. Glad I never have to worry about that ever again.

And then he'd been too fixated on getting Martin back to even think about the possibility of moving on to someone else, even as a rebound. He was still sort of licking his wounds about the whole Martin was never going to take him back thing. Sebastian just didn't get it. He'd never even had a serious boyfriend. He was a committed playboy. He'd never had his heart broken before.

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound," Tad murmured aloud.

Sebastian cocked his head back in shock. "First of all," he stuck an affronted finger out at Tad. "Don't you ever, don't you ever, quote Shakespeare at me in a condescending tone, like I'm not the gayest person alive."

"Second of all," he barrelled on before Tad had time to interject. "That was the most I've ever been attracted to you. Congrats, Tadpole. You're ready to get back on the horse."

Tad huffed out a weary breath. He prayed to whatever God might be listening that Sebastian's parents were going to lift their punishment on their son soon. His meter of patience with the long limbed manchild he was harboring was running out.

Tad was sweating. He couldn't believe he was doing this. This was a mistake. He shouldn't have come here. He felt horribly exposed and embarrassed, like everyone at this bar knew exactly who he was and why he was there. If Martin could see him now, he'd never let him live it down. He momentarily dreaded the inevitable lecture he was going to get before remembering that he hadn't spoken to Martin in weeks and never planned to again. He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, overcome with melancholy.

Sebastian had deserted him as soon as they'd arrived. He'd told Tad that he couldn't trust someone with no wingman experience to not ruin his chances at getting laid tonight. Tad couldn't fault him for that. He was grateful for the opportunity to have the apartment to himself for a night. He didn't actually think he was going to be successful in his promised venture to bring anyone home for himself, but he wouldn't mind a little casual making out in a dark corner with someone, should the opportunity present itself.

He'd decided he was going to go for it once he'd finished his third drink. The third drink was his sweet spot. Loose and relaxed enough to be uninhibited by nerves and inexperience but not so drunk he'd make a fool of himself. He once made a drunken fool of himself in front of a prospective suitor and he had no plans to repeat that mistake ever again. But, in his defense, it had kind of ended in a little light making out. Then he'd been rejected and thrown up afterwards. Life was complex.

He was eyeing a geeky-hot ginger in a Game of Thrones t-shirt. He'd heard Sebastian talk about it enough to be able to use it as a pick up line, for sure. He could do this. He could make awkward work for him. People were into that sort of thing. He took a deep breath and downed the last of his drink.

Someone shoved roughly up against his back and he nearly choked on the ice that surged to the back of his throat. He was still coughing it back up into his empty glass when the person responsible was patting him on the back and apologizing profusely.

"I didn't even–oh. Tad?"

Tad's head snapped up from where it'd been bent over, mildly retching. He wiped his spit on his sleeve, staring dumbfoundedly into the eyes of his ex boyfriend.

And even more alarming than that, he looked pissed. Which didn't make any sense, considering he was the one who'd literally just bumped into him.

"What are you doing here?" Martin demanded, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Tad reared back in confusion. "Um. Drinking? Hanging out?"

Martin crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Did you know I was gonna be here tonight?"

"What?" Tad scrunched his face up, completely baffled what was happening to him right now. "No?"

"You have to stop doing shit like this, Tad," Martin was running a hand through his hair now, shaking his head in disbelief. "It's really not cool. I'll admit, I thought it was cute at first, but–"

"What the fuck," Tad was drunk enough to spit at him, "are you talking about?"

"Following me around!" Martin exploded, causing a few nearby bar flies to stop what they were doing and stare at the scene forming in front of them. "I thought you'd get the hint after I caught you doing it at the coffee place…"

Okay, well, that was true. Two weeks into the breakup Tad had staged a run-in at Martin's local coffee shop, but it had gone all wrong and been painfully obvious that he'd just been sitting there waiting for Martin to show up but Martin had pretended not to notice and they'd silently agreed to never speak on the matter again.

"And then the thing at my apartment, and now this. Who just comes to a nightclub by themselves? Come on, Tad. Seriously."

_Thing at my apartment_? Was he talking about when he'd literally asked Tad to bring that food over? How was that his fault? But more importantly: Tad said, "Um. Well. I'm not here by myself, but, okay."

Martin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. If you wanted your fucking food dish back so badly you could have just asked me, you know. How did you get in, by the way? Do you still have the key to my place? Jesus Christ, Tad, that is so f–"

"Baby," Hot breath pooled in Tad's right ear as long, sweaty arms wrapped around his torso. "There you are. I thought I lost you." Sebastian giggled and nuzzled against him, leaning all his weight into Tad until Tad was forced to reach his arms out to steady the both of them upright.

He turned to look at Martin, blinking as if he'd only just noticed him standing there. He straightened himself up, keeping one arm slung around Tad's shoulder as he reached out the other for Martin to shake. "Oh, hi."

Martin accepted it, face frozen in contemplative shock. He cleared his throat and asked, "Who's this?"

"Sebastian Hawthorne," Sebastian answered proudly. "Of the Virginia Hawthornes. But around these parts I'm just the boyfriend, now that  _somebody's_  a big shot city slicker." He stuck his tongue out in a mock gagging gesture, wiggling his head toward Tad in drunken, affectionate jest. "Anyway, you must be one of these photography buddies I hear so much about."

"Uh, no." Tad could visibly see the math Martin was trying to calculate in his head. "I'm Martin. Martin Meyer. Tad and I used to date."

"Oh." Sebastian did his best impression of uninterested surprise. "Well, that's cute." He patted Tad on the chest. "Thanks for breaking him in for me."

"Whatever," Martin shook his head, like he didn't have time to accept Sebastian's existence. Understandable. "Tad, I know it was you who broke into my place, just—"

"Excuse me?" Sebastian barked, all his flamboyant dandy act dissolved. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Sebastian," Tad sighed. "It's fine."

"This really doesn't concern you," Martin added on unnecessarily, and all Tad's dreams about letting Sebastian off the hook and telling Martin the truth flashed before his eyes before they vanished into thin air.

"Um," Sebastian scoffed. "You're accusing  _my boyfriend_  of a  _crime_. I think that concerns me."

"Well maybe you should be more worried about how  _your boyfriend_  is still so obsessed with me to point where he breaks into my apartment and steals things I'd borrowed from him."

Sebastian shook his head rapidly back and forth, like he was dizzied from all this information. "And when did this alleged incident take place?"

"Just earlier this month," Martin shot back. "The 14th."

"Really," Sebastian nodded his head, his voice thick with disdain. "Because that was the day of my grandpa Daryl's funeral. And Tad wasn't even in this state, let alone your apartment. He was back home in Virginia, with me." Sebastian's eyes welled up with tears and his voice began to crack. "I think he was a little too busy helping me bury the man who raised me to be worried about some fucking dish he'd left at your place, Marcus."

Martin, for the first time in Tad's entire experience of him, was at a loss for words. Finally he said, "I. Uh. I'm. Sorry to hear that."

"Thank you," Sebastian sniffed, wiping at his eyes. "He was a veteran."

"Martin," Tad sighed. "Look, I don't know what happened with this whole break in thing but it sounds messed up. Did you call the police?"

"No," Martin was still rattled by Sebastian's performance. "I–I really thought it was you."

"Well," Tad shrugged. "For what it's worth, I really don't care about the dish. It's not a big deal. To be honest, I'd completely forgotten about it." He winced. "But, I'm sorry about what happened. I hope you get to the bottom of it." Sebastian was tugging at his arm now, whining about wanting to dance to the song that had just started playing. "But hey. It was good to see you."

"I was making out with a local politician's repressed son," Sebastian hissed into Tad's ear as he dragged him away. "You owe me big time."

"Hey, I didn't ask for your help. I was gonna tell him the truth." Tad snorted. "Good old Grandpa Daryl. American hero."

"My grandpa really was a veteran," Sebastian replied. "Sebastian the second. But he was a racist. And he smelled like soup all the time. Ew, he was so gross, ugh, whatever, he's dead and I hate him."

Sebastian was paid for his valiant efforts in free drinks for the rest of the evening, and Tad even danced with him to that heinous Justin Timberlake song, because he'd been way past his three drink sweet spot at the time. They were still shuttling in the subway back to Tad's place when Sebastian jerked his head up from where it had collapsed onto Tad's lap and gasped. "Oh my God!"

Luckily the only other people in their car were as drunk as they were and couldn't be bothered to be offended by the noise.

Sebastian grabbed Tad by the shoulders. "I just remembered something."

Tad's head was spinning but he tried to focus on the two big black eyes that were boring into his.

"When I said all that stuff to Martin, about how you were comforting me in Virginia and burying Grandpa Daryl and not caring about the dish.."

Tad nodded. He remembered things. He knew stuff.

"He hadn't said anything about the dish!" Sebastian yelped. "I wasn't supposed to know about the dish!"

"Sebastian," Tad slurred, reaching forward to pat the top of his slick head. "Everyone knows about the dish."

The car lurched and Sebastian's head slumped forward, knocking into his. "Ow," Tad whispered, which triggered Sebastian's laughing fit, and then he was pressing his face into the crook of Sebastian's neck, trying to conceal his own.

When they made it back home in one piece, Tad paused before retreating into his bedroom for the night. "Sorry you didn't get to go home with that politician's son."

"Yeah well," Sebastian said, propping himself up with one elbow. "Vampire Weekend already wrote a song about it. It's old news."

Tad didn't know what Sebastian was talking about, as was par for the course. So instead he asked, "Why didn't you ever tell anyone?"

"Hmm?" Sebastian quirked his head up at him.

"You always knew I was gay," Tad reminded him. "When...when people found out about you and started making fun of you and stuff. You could have told everyone about me. Taken some of the heat off yourself. Why didn't you?"

Sebastian looked at Tad, just looked at him, devoid of any identifiable expression, and then said, "Why would I have done something like that?"

Tad shrugged. "I would have deserved it. I could have stood up for you. But I didn't." He rubbed at an invisible scuff mark along the wall, unable to look Sebastian in the eyes. "I'm sorry. I was scared."

"Oh, Thaddeus," Sebastian drawled, falling back down into the couch. "My goodness. The drama. We were just kids."

Tad sighed. He supposed Sebastian's point of view on the matter differed vastly to his. It was a big deal to him. And something he'd always been ashamed of.

"Right," he said, quietly, proud that he'd at least finally mustered up the guts to apologize, even if it didn't mean anything to Sebastian. It meant something to him. "Well, goodnight."

Sebastian was already snoring.

*******

Tad's head was splitting open. He rolled over in bed, willing another position to ease the pain. It only made it worse. He'd angered the hangover God. Light was blazing straight through his closed eyelids. He swore he could practically  _smell_  something burning.

_**BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP** _

He shot up in bed, ignoring how nauseous the quick movement made him. He scrambled toward the door and threw it open, revealing the entire living area and kitchen bathed in smoke. He coughed his way through it, eyes stinging, until he smacked head-on into Sebastian, who was holding the torn apart smoke alarm in one hand and a blackened, smoking toaster in the other. He was naked except for a pair of light blue form fitting boxer-briefs. His hair was so uncharacteristically askew, all stuck up in the back like chicken feathers, that Tad for a moment thought perhaps he had somehow electrocuted himself like a cartoon character.

"Okay," Sebastian said, "So, before you say anything, I'd like to have a chance to tell my side of the story."

Tad gaped.

"I thought I knew how to make grilled cheese. However—"

"Oh my God," Tad's hands flew to his chest, willing his heartbeat to slow. "When I saw all the smoke, goddamnit, I was worried about you! And here you are, at the fucking epicenter of the disaster—and—and…" Tad's brain sizzled, flustered into a frenzy from the panic of thinking Sebastian had suffocated from smoke inhalation in his sleep to the shock of seeing an imagination-less outline of his dick and his hair all stuck up in the back like that. "My toaster!"

"You can add it to my ever growing tab!" Sebastian promised, gritting his teeth together in apology. "I was trying to be a domestic goddess. But forces out of my control thwarted my efforts!"

Tad stomped over to the tiny window across the living room and yanked it open. "You are such an idiot."

"I've been called worse," Sebastian sighed, rueful. Tad just shook his head and stalked back to his bedroom, where at least the smoke wasn't so heavy in the air. Sebastian followed after him like a neglected puppy, pouting and babbling more apologies, asking how he could make it up to him.

"I'm not mad," Tad groaned, throwing a miserable arm over his still stinging eyes. "I'm fucking hungover, I just had a heart attack, and my brain's about to burst out of my skull."

"Okay," Sebastian's weight sank down on the bed. "How can I help?"

"I don't know," Tad yawned, secretly glad Sebastian was not dead on his couch but mostly annoyed with him for almost burning down his apartment and waking him up before he could sleep off this nightmare. "Suck my dick?"

"Finally," Sebastian sighed. "Something I'm good at."

Tad laughed, but then Sebastian's weight shifted on the bed and cool fingers were dipping into the waistband of his boxers. He jerked upright in bed. "What the fuck?"

"What?" Sebastian looked innocently confused.

"Cut it out," Tad grumbled, shoving away from Sebastian.

Sebastian scoffed, put his hands on his hips. "You told me to."

"I was joking."

"You sounded serious."

Tad wasn't in the mood for this. "Why would I seriously ask you to suck my dick?"

"Uh," Sebastian paused, as if he were being swindled into a trick question. "Because you're attracted to me sexually?"

Sebastian had that whole creepy-hot brooding Victorian widower who might have murdered his wife thing going for him. That was not Tad's type. It was not what he was attracted to. But something about the way he'd gone from thinking he was dead to seeing him in such a state of undress, the chicken feathered hair, well, he wasn't sporting a semi for  _no_  reason.

"Maybe," he admitted with a casual shrug. "But only in theory."

Sebastian was gobsmacked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I couldn't ever act on it!"

"Why not?"

"Because—you—I—" Tad sputtered. "We're friends!"

"Friends!" Sebastian squawked. "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"

"Friends don't suck each other's dicks."

"Yes they do," Sebastian argued. "What kind of friends  _don't_?"

Tad grit his teeth together, annoyed to the point nausea. "God, I hate it when you're purposefully obtuse."

"Oh! That would make a great drag name." Sebastian was rendered instantaneously unaroused as he instead became hyperfixated on creating his drag persona, animatedly describing to Tad the complexity behind his walk-in look and what he'd say for his introductory catchphrase. "You see what I mean?" He shook his hands wildly as he spoke. "And the whole time I'd be subverting the trope!"

"What?" Sebastian pouted at Tad's silence. Tad shook his head.

"I just, like, can't even pay attention to anything other than your hair right now."

"Huh?" Sebastian reached upward. "What's wrong with it?" He patted down the chicken feathers in vain. "Oh my God. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I thought maybe you were trying out a new style," Tad smirked, dodging a rough shove from Sebastian. He snarled and went back to smoothing at the tumbleweed atop his head. Tad guffawed. "You're just making it worse. Here, let me help." Sebastian stopped fussing and leaned forward to give Tad access to his mussed head. Tad raked his fingers through Sebastian's hair and rubbed them back and forth until it was sticking straight up all the way around, like a porcupine's quills.

"Tad!" Sebastian shrieked in girlish horror. "I trusted you!"

"Well, that was your first mistake," Tad snickered, barrell rolling in bed, evading another weak attack of retaliation. But Sebastian's reaction time was cat-like, and as soon as Tad was right side up Sebastian was swinging his leg over his waist and pinning him down in place. Tad tried to counter but Sebastian was stronger than his salad fingers frame implied. He caught Tad's wrists in his hands and pinned them high above his head, smiling triumphantly.

"That was easy."

"That was my nickname in college," Tad grinned, which was a layered joke, since he hadn't technically gone to college, he'd never had a nickname other than Tad, and he'd never been with anyone except his ex boyfriend. Sebastian laughed, high and rich, because he got it, obviously. To drive home the punchline, Tad craned his neck up to peck Sebastian lightly on the mouth. But Sebastian pressed his lips into it, hot and electric, and opened Tad's mouth with his, and after you've had your tongue in someone else's mouth for more than a few seconds, you kind of have to realize that neither of you are joking.

*******

Not much changed. They still argued about what to watch and Sebastian still found increasingly clever ways out of doing the dishes and Tad still felt weird and fucked up and sad sometimes, even though things had been going better than usual.

Like Sebastian sleeping in his bed at night instead of on the couch. That was one of the changes. A good one. Tad liked having a large human body pillow to wrap around when the weird fucked up and sad feelings came creeping in. Plus, winter was starting to wrap its way around New York and Sebastian was like his own personal space heater.

But Tad wasn't happy. In fact, he was sort of miserable. He knew it didn't have anything to do with Sebastian, or the fact that he'd started sleeping in his bed with him, or the fact that they'd started having sex all the time.

That was the other thing. The sex all the time. That was where everything got really muddled in his mind. The first time they'd done it, it had been awkward, and messy, and great. He hadn't known what to expect afterwards. If Sebastian was the type to want to stick around and cuddle or if he'd want to get up and go shower right away like Martin always did or if it was a one time thing or if Sebastian expected it to happen again.

"I have a secret," Tad told him, hours later, after neither of them seemed to be very keen on moving anytime soon. "But you don't have anything to trade for it."

"I have things!" Sebastian shot him a wounded look. "Items. Possessions. Of great value, thank you very much." They lay in silence for another moment before he added. "What is it?"

"I didn't know it could be like that," Tad told him, rolling over to face the wall.

"Like what?" Sebastian asked softly.

Tad sighed. Closed his eyes. Smiled at the memory. "Fun."

"I don't know what kind of sex you've been having," Sebastian mused. "But it's always supposed to be fun."

Tad didn't say anything, at first, because he didn't know quite what to say. First he had to figure out what it was that he thought. Sex with Martin hadn't ever been fun. It wasn't like it was horrible or unwanted or anything like that. It was just such a deliberate, planned out, clinical thing. Tad loved it because he'd loved him. But there were times when it felt like a chore more often than not. It stressed him out. Martin was finicky and hard to please. Their sex schedule revolved around his moods and his moods only. He never did anything that Tad didn't want, but he knew how to make him feel like shit for saying no. But then if Tad ever gave in and tried to make it better with a yes, Martin would only scoff in disgust. "I don't need to feel like I'm forcing myself on my boyfriend", he'd say. "The person who's  _supposed_  to want me." Tad did want him. He always wanted him. He just didn't always want to be having sex when Martin did. On those nights, he'd curl up to the opposite edge of the bed, wondering sullenly why Martin always took it as some kind of cruel rejection. It had taken this long for him to finally figure it out. It wasn't about desire or hurt feelings or being wanted, it was about control. That was what it was always about with Martin. Not just the sex. All of it.

"I guess I've been having bad sex, then," Tad replied. It felt traitorous to say it out loud. Pretty ridiculous, considering Martin had been long gone from his life for some time now. Even so, guilt and humiliation pawed at him from the inside out. When he felt Sebastian's weight leave the bed he'd thought, yeah, that makes sense. He'd gone and made it weird. They'd been having a nice post-sex layabout until then. But the weight returned and Sebastian's hands were drumming at Tad's shoulder blades, ordering him up. Tad stirred and raised his head to see Sebastian holding open what looked to be a knitted scarf gone incredibly wrong. Sebastian slid it over Tad's head and it fell shapelessly down around his body.

"The fucking ugly thing," Tad grumbled, but he felt like he might cry.

Sebastian leaned over to plant a sloppy wet kiss on the side of his face. "It's yours now. You have to keep it. And I'll keep the secret."

Tad wriggled back down into bed, arms wrapped up inside the sweater like a big fuzzy straitjacket. He rolled around the other way to face Sebastian again. "How do you feel about after-sex kissing?"

"Uh, depends, I suppose." Sebastian answered, looking thoughtful. "What's the point of it?"

Tad shrugged, or attempted to inside his new warm, navy blue prison. "There's not one."

"Oh," Sebastian sidled closer. "Then I feel very positively about it."

Tad wasn't sure why he felt so uncomfortable. He felt like he was walking along a tightrope and some kind of long drop was inevitable. Why? He surely wasn't worried about the sleeping together and kissing getting awkward and ruining his friendship with Sebastian. Sebastian wasn't someone who caught feelings easily. He was still sleeping with other people. And Tad was only exclusively sleeping with Sebastian because he was depressed and lazy and Sebastian was available and had the decency to do all the work for him.

It didn't become glaringly obvious until one night Sebastian had come home from a night out, sweaty and just past the point of annoyingly tipsy, wrapped his arms around Tad and starting kissing on the back of his neck. "Well," he mumbled, "I struck out with a British D-List actor and my ego is severely bruised. Make me feel better."

Tad's stomach turned from where he lay in bed. He realized it would be pretty mean to reject someone when they'd just been rejected. But it also wasn't Tad's job to make Sebastian feel better. And he really wasn't in the mood to be a consolation prize, or have sex at all, for any reason, really. He breathed out a preparatory sigh and said, "Not tonight."

He was running through his cache of excuses. I'm too tired, I don't feel good, I haven't showered, but Sebastian was already rolling away from him and, grumbling something about being an undesirable wretch who was going to die alone.

"Can I still sleep in here?" he asked.

Tad was caught off guard. They'd been sleeping together for weeks and it had always been an unspoken agreement. It took him a moment to realize that Sebastian wasn't just being a passive aggressive drama queen and it was actually a valid question. Tad thought about it. Could he still sleep in here?

"Sure," he told him, rolling over to snake his arms around Sebastian's waist, because he realized that cuddling wasn't out of the question, if that could suffice.

Sebastian usually responded to affection like an addict who'd been tweaking for it, but this time he just made a small sigh of contentment and relaxed further into bed. Was that his form of punishment for Tad not giving him what he wanted?

Tad had to ask. "Are you upset?"

Sebastian didn't open his eyes and spoke in a sleepily detached way. "Not really. He had weird opinions about Hamlet and you know how that bothers me. "

Tad was confused. "What?"

Sebastian sighed wearily. "Tad, how many times do I have to tell you? The nunnery scene—"

"No." Tad already knew how Sebastian felt about common interpretations of Shakespeare. "I mean, who—" His brain reminded him that it had the ability to string facts together and come to conclusions. "Oh. You mean the actor?"

"Yes!" Sebastian's eyes were blinking open now, his brow furrowing. "Who else would I be talking about? Do you think I was unjustly spurned multiple times tonight? Because there was an SNL writer who told me I had a future in sketch comedy, but he had bad breath and I decided to fly too close to the sun, instead."

It had only just occurred to Tad, in that exact moment, that maybe the reaction he'd been expecting was not a normal one. A new layer of embarrassment settled over him. And a weird kind of hurt that he didn't really know what to do with. Now he felt awkward and unsettled and strangely unwantable. But, in turn, the monster at the end of the book had been revealed to him and he understood why he'd been so abstractly on edge when it came to entering in a sexual relationship with Sebastian.

He didn't feel happy, exactly. But he felt...relaxed. Comfortable. Unafraid of any impending consequences. Was that how other people felt about the people they were sleeping with? Like, all the time? Tad couldn't really imagine it. He was instead forced to examine a lot of things about himself and his past relationship that made him incredibly  _un_ comfortable. He wondered what Sebastian would think of him if he knew. That he was stupid? Some kind of incomparably dumb doormat of a person? He really didn't want Sebastian to know, if it meant his perception of him would be negatively altered.

But there was this weird part of him that wanted to say something. It was wholly new. Encounters with Martin were like 8-bit puzzle games. Each one like a new, more difficult level that he couldn't figure out how to win. So he'd just stopped playing the game altogether, stayed quiet, waited for the storm to blow over instead of running out and chasing it.

Sebastian wasn't like Martin —obviously— but the most significant difference was how unquick to anger he was. He tried to remember a time he'd seen Sebastian angry. Not annoyed, or petulantly sullen, but red-faced, yelling and breaking things angry. Or even quietly stoic with rage. He couldn't produce such a memory, not even when they were young and kids were mean and Tad had been mean too and Sebastian would have had every right to be a bitter, spiteful person.

And so, because there was no memory, no learned defense against it, no evidence available to imagine the possibility, Tad wasn't afraid of making Sebastian mad. Even if he did, what would Seb do? He'd probably just say, "I'm mad," the same way he announced he was bored or hungry. There would be no puzzle, no mystery, no game.

Tad liked that. He liked that Sebastian was easy to understand, if you thought about him for longer than two seconds. He couldn't believe he'd ever thought Sebastian was some kind of impossible equation he didn't have time to solve. Well, perhaps that was still true. Maybe it was like one of those really long math problems that are deceivingly simple to figure out, but the kind everyone takes one look at decides: nope, not for me.

Tad thought, as he lay pressed up against the heartbeat of another human being, that while it might not be the secret to cookies that didn't burn and pies that didn't sink, sometimes patience brought you incredible things.

Sebastian was asleep now. There'd been no fight, no whining or guilt-tripping. Tad felt an unparalleled calm seep through him, soaking his insides until he drifted off to sleep with no anxiety about the sort of environment he'd wake up in. Feeling safe wasn't necessarily being happy — but it was a start.

*******

Tad kept reading the email over and over, closing the mail app on his phone and reopening it, like it might have vanished due to being a mirage. He used the safari app to open his email inbox manually. It was still there. He chewed on his bottom lip. He was contemplating deleting it and emptying his trash and then pretending he never saw it when a shadow passed over his head, followed by the unmistakable smoky scent of Sebastian's designer cologne.

"Whatcha doin?"

Tad jumped even though he wasn't truly startled. He just didn't want to seem as neurotic as he felt at the moment.

"Nothing," Tad clicked his phone into sleep mode and lifted up from where he was sitting on the couch to shove it into his back pocket. "What's up?"

"I've got good news and bad news," Sebastian sighed, climbing over the back of the couch to fall uselessly on top of him. "Which do you want first?"

"Is this about the dishes?" Tad raised an authoritative eyebrow. "Because it's your turn and you can't trade it for my choice of weird sex again. I'm still traumatized from the restaurant incident."

"Exhibitionism is not for the faint of heart," Sebastian agreed. "But you tried your best and that's all that matters. But no. I'm psychologically preparing myself to do the dishes after dinner. So which do you want first?"

Tad had momentarily forgotten there was a choice on the table, probably because he hated making decisions, but he was glad to be distracted from the email he was pretending didn't exist. "Good first."

"That's a horrible decision," said Sebastian, triggering Tad's anxiety about being forced to make decisions. "You're supposed to choose bad first. Always choose bad first, Tad." Luckily Tad had been building up his immunity to Sebastian-induced PTSD and managed to quell his hard beating heart with a roll of his eyes.

"Why did you even give me a choice, then?"

"I'm a very accommodating person," Sebastian informed him. "And I will honor your choice, but I just want you to know it's bad."

Tad crossed his arms and waited for Sebastian to spit out whatever he was being unnecessarily dramatic about.

"The human beings who allegedly provided their blended DNA to bring me to life finally remembered they have a son. I suspect it's mostly because they need me home for this year's Christmas card picture, but my bank account is officially unfrozen and I went ahead and got the plane tickets. Leaving this weekend."

Tad's brain was half through formulating a congratulatory response for Sebastian's sentence lifting, swerving around the strange black hole that had just opened up inside his chest at the word  _leaving_ , but eventually stopped in front of the use of a confusing plural and had to take an altogether detour. "Tick _ets_?"

"That's the bad news." Sebastian twisted his dark mauve lips into an apprehensive frown. "You kind of have to come with me. And by kind of I mean definitely, absolutely, non-negotiably have to come with me. So, there is that."

"What?" Tad blinked, pausing his emotions for the time being. He was going to wait for Sebastian to explain and then decide what kind of response it called for.

"Well," Sebastian shrugged. "They wanted to know how I'd been surviving all this time without any money of my own and so I told them that I'd been staying with someone and they were rightfully suspicious of this on the grounds that someone would have to be eligible for sainthood to put up with me for this long and so I told them I was fairly certain it was only because you were freshly heartbroken and desperately lonely."

Tad was still weighing his various options for reaction, though unbridled rage was taking the lead.

"And mother got all hot and bothered because she has a frighteningly toxic savior complex and she just couldn't bear the thought of you spending Christmas in New York by yourself and she wanted to be able to personally thank you for taking in her darling baby boy that it's come back in style to love and care for again."

Tad didn't have to ask why Sebastian's mother would know Tad didn't have other Christmas plans. He hadn't seen nor spoken to his parents in years and none of his immediate nor extended family had ever bothered to reach out, either. Even if Sebastian's mother hadn't been friends with Tad's and therefore undoubtedly had all the insider information to the unsightly stain on the Carruthers name, word traveled fast in Henrietta. The whole town knew about his excommunication and the reason behind it by now, probably. It was why he never had any interest in returning.

"I am," Tad closed his eyes, "overcome with an abundance of highly intense emotions toward you right now. All negative."

"What a relief," Sebastian purred, slumping forward to drop his head down onto Tad's chest. "And here I thought you'd be mad at me."

"You're not as funny as you think you are," Tad told him, impassively frigid.

"I'm going to accept that cold and untrue remark as my punishment and have the decency not to respond to it," Sebastian sniffed.

"I think I'm going to decide what your punishment will be," Tad replied.

"Will it be, in any way, sexual?"

"Of course not."

"You're a monster."

"You know, I actually have much bigger problems than this," Tad sighed, deciding forced moral support was going to be part of Sebastian's penance for his actions. "I got a very unsettling email today."

"Did we leave fingerprints at Marshall's place? I've got a fantastic lawyer."

"It was from New York Magazine," Tad blurted out, itching to pass the information on to someone else so he didn't have to deal with it himself. "They saw some of my stuff on my website and want to use a few photos for a couple different articles."

"That's ridiculous," Sebastian exclaimed. "And they're not going to pay you for that?"

"No," said Tad. "They are."

"Oh," Sebastian's chest deflated, the fight knocked out of him. "Well, that's fine, then. What's the bad part?"

"It's not bad, it's just weird." Tad didn't know how to explain the way it made him feel. If the email hadn't had links to the photographs in question nothing could have convinced him it wasn't sent to him by mistake. "Do you think I should do it?"

"Well, yeah." Sebastian was in full house cat mode, still curled securely atop Tad's chest. "Why wouldn't you?"

"I don't know," Tad picked at a loose thread on Sebastian's shirt sleeve. "I just don't know if I'm comfortable with that."

"Is this some kind of starving artist moral dilemma about not taking money from the man? Because while that's all very attractive, it's a bit 90s, and—"

"You're not helping." Tad sighed. "Nevermind."

"I didn't know I was supposed to be helping," Sebastian argued back. "You haven't really given me a chance to."

Tad didn't think he'd ever heard Seb's voice dip down that low or cut that sharp. A splash of panic took hold of him because suddenly he was shuddering through every time he said the wrong thing to Martin and he'd get pissed at him and ignore him and leave Tad to figure out what to do to fix it.

But Sebastian was already plowing through more scenarios, eager to get to the bottom of Tad's upset. "Is it because you've got a better deal from someone else? Is it because they did something problematic and you don't know if money and exposure is worth the purity of your socially just soul?"

"No," Tad said, forgetting the residual bleeding that still dripped out of an aging wound that he was wondering might never heal, and returning to being annoyed with Sebastian. "It's not anything like that. I just feel like it's—I don't know! Awkward. My name will be on those photos. People will read the articles and see that."

"I don't think anyone reads the names on photos in articles," Sebastian told him unhelpfully. "I don't even think anyone reads articles anymore. Unless the articles you're going to be featured in say something like We asked a local photographer to submit some pictures and you WON'T BELIEVE what happened next!"

"Okay," Tad shoved at Sebastian's chest, finished. "Get off me."

"Well I wasn't going to say it," Sebastian scoffed, fighting for his place in Tad's lap. "Because it's rude to point out someone's insecurities. But that's obviously what the problem is here and it's totally bogus."

"Bogus?" Tad repeated, trying to throw the heat back on Sebastian.

"I'm bringing it back," Sebastian said, with complete confidence that this was true. "I know the whole self-deprecating fuck me I'm trash thing is sexy and I can't say it hasn't worked on me brilliantly but sometimes you need to give it a rest. They wouldn't have asked, and sure as hell wouldn't have offered money, if your photos weren't worth it. So just do it."

Tad opened his mouth to object, to deny, to explain why Sebastian had it all wrong and didn't understand, as usual. But he couldn't. Sebastian accepted his victory with a gracious smirk and lifted himself off Tad's gone-numb legs. "Give me your phone, I'm amazing at sounding professional over email."

Tad imagined himself projected on a large movie theatre screen, as the audience screamed at him unsympathetically, like they did underwear clad supermodels who went to investigate dark basements by themselves, but handed his phone over all the same.

"There you go," Seb handed the phone back to Tad and pulled out his own.

"Sebastian!" He found it hard to feel sorry for himself when he saw what Seb had written in response, but so he had all the more energy to be enraged.  _I have forwarded this email to my manager and you should be expecting a response from him promptly to discuss further details. Thank you for interest, T. Carruthers._ "Photographers don't have managers!"

"You do," Sebastian argued, typing away furiously at his own phone.

"It literally says on my website that I'm independent." He couldn't believe Sebastian would just fuck this up for him without a second thought. He knew the concept of consequences wasn't exactly in Sebastian's wheelhouse, but this was beyond innocent ignorance. "It's not like it's the Henrietta Herald, Seb. They're going to know I'm bullshitting and not take me seriously now."

"Are you sure about that?" Sebastian sounded pleased with himself. He passed his phone to Tad. There was an incoming message from the official NY Mag email address.  _Thank you for getting back to us so quickly. We are excited to work with your client, Mr. Carruthers, and will be mailing out the compensation check within the next business day._

"Do you think they let anyone with a brain do the grunt work of playing email and phone tag all day? This is probably some intern on their first day. And anyway, I got you a better deal."

"Oh my God," Tad threw his head into his hands. "What did you ask for?"

"Double the offering amount." Sebastian smiled like he was posing for a vacation picture. "Whatever that means."

Finally, Tad said, "I hope you're not expecting a cut, Mr. Manager."

"Please. I'm doing it for the experience." He stood up from the couch. "Now put on something cute."

"You know I'm still mad at you, right?"

"Sure, sure. Flog me with a riding crop while I do the dishes later. But right now we're going out to celebrate."

Sebastian's energy was unfortunately infectious. And he had just helped Tad do something Tad obviously didn't have the emotional capacity to do by himself. If Tad could even the scales a bit by succumbing to Sebastian's impractical whims, then so be it.

*******

Worrying about money was the most stressful thing in the world. Especially since Tad wasn't used to it. He had not grown up with the skill of frugality in place, as there had been no need for it. He knew his family had money and there were other families, and those without any family at all, who did not. But this was not something he spent a lot of time thinking about. He considered himself fortunate to be one of those who did and went on about his life with more important things to worry about.

And even now, he still didn't have to worry, not the way other people did. His parents had never gone as far as Sebastian's, cutting him off financially. He had enough to pay his rent, as much food as he required, leftover money to spend on whatever. It wasn't the absence of money he had to worry about, but the possibility of it running out. He had learned that money was not infinite, not for him, not anymore. And it sucked. There was the fear that at any given moment the money might stop coming and he'd be completely screwed. All the independence he'd acquired for himself wasn't as impressive when mommy and daddy were funding his exile.

Still, he had begun to treasure the money he did have as precious and became kind of unnecessarily hoardish about it, just in case the day came that it did stop and he'd need a nest egg to live on until while he spent an appropriate span of time mourning his past life before he was emotionally ready to wikihow getting a job.

As he looked over the drink and food menu of the place Sebastian had picked, he knew he'd spent too long as a potential poor person to feel anxiety at the lack of any prices listed. He'd forgotten that the sort of people who came to places like this wouldn't care to know.

He lifted his eyes to the man across from him. "You'd think that your time spent as a pauper would have made you at least a little less exorbitant."

"The past is the past," Sebastian shrugged airily. "What are you thinking, drink-wise?"

Tad shrugged. "I don't know. This place is a little out of range for me." It wasn't exactly the truth. Could he afford it? Sure. But what if one day he couldn't? What if that day was tomorrow? It just stressed him out. Sebastian knew this about Tad, they had discussed it once during the witching hour between sex and sleep, but of course it wasn't something he could easily conceptualize or be bothered to remember. "I'm still working on finding a new benefactor. Preferably a gay one, so I have some kind of leverage."

"Tad." Sebastian batted his dark eyelashes. "Are you asking me to be your sugar daddy?"

Tad leaned forward, fist propping up his chin. "I think it would be extremely rude of you to decline. After all I've done for you."

Sebastian had this way of grinning with his teeth that was just shy of resembling Freaky Fred from Courage the Cowardly Dog. His pale skin, dark hair, and softly sculpted eyebrows saved him from this fate and he passed for an aesthetically pleasing Tim Burton character, instead. He mirrored Tad's stance, sliding his fingers up the inseam of Tad's skinny burnt orange chinos. "Then whatever baby wants, baby gets, cause daddy's buying."

Tad laughed into his water, warmed that Sebastian was quoting the show he only watched to humor him. He really was a good friend. Not that Tad really had much to compare Sebastian's companionship to. Seb was a privileged idiot and never thought about anything before he did it, but his heart was in the right place. That was more than Tad could say for anyone else he'd had any kind of lasting relationship with.

They ended up ordering separate wine flights. Tad got some Italian reds and Sebastian went straight for the dessert wine.

"Well," Sebastian announced after taking a sip from each one. "Mine's a bust. How's your Roman Holiday?"

"It's better than the Halsey song but not as good as the movie," Tad answered, having already downed the first one completely and settling nicely on the right edge of tipsy.

Sebastian looked away from him and back, like he was a scandalized damsel. "I thought we decided we weren't having sex in public anymore."

Tad scoffed. "We're not."

"Then stop flirting with me." Sebastian glared at him, half lidded. He looked like a sleepy wolf. Either certain expressions really worked for Sebastian's features or Tad was drunker than he thought. The dark booth lit only with candles wasn't helping, either.

"Stop looking at me like that." Tad stabbed a mushroom and dipped it into the fondue pot they were sharing.

"Like what?" Sebastian pouted, falsely innocent. Tad held the end of the fondue fork up to Sebastian's mouth lazily. Sebastian eyes fluttered closed and blew on it, because that was a weird tick he had before he put food in his mouth regardless of its temperature, and Tad wished he had a better camera on him because it all came together like something that should be photographed. The skin of Sebastian's eyelids was so fair, soft cracks of dark veins ruddied the delicate surface. Pink pigmentation blushed his cheeks. His mauvey lips pursed in a perfect circle. He looked supremely otherworldly. It was no wonder he did his best work in dance clubs. When all the colored lights came spinning down around him, flecks of white glittering from a disco ball or fractal strobe, and Sebastian was all shoulders and hips and eyes, technicolored and glistening like some kind of mischievous fey prince, how could anyone resist?

Anyone who was into that sort of thing, anyway.

Tad had thought about it. How could he not? They were living and sleeping together. It was almost like having a boyfriend. But that just wasn't...what they were. They were nothing alike. Everything about Sebastian was so... _loud_ , from his occasionally painted nails to his twangy vocal fry. He was better suited for someone who could chug brightly colored drinks with him and understand all his pop culture references. Someone who knew as much about Ariana Grande's dogs as he did. Someone who got that sometimes he needed to stay in bed all day not out of a lifetime of privileged laziness but because climbing Mount Everest would have been easier. He had dark moods and bright moods and sometimes he went so fast Tad couldn't even bother trying to keep up with him and sometimes he'd be so quiet in the shelter of Tad's bedroom that Tad would forget he was even there until he'd appear in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, wondering about food. And that was another thing. Even when he was having a bad day, he always wanted food. He'd be a hit with Tad's maternal family. The uproar at Sebastian's skinny arms would have been greater than the fact that he was the gay man living with Tad, who was also gay.

Anyway, whoever Sebastian ended up with needed to know all that and know how to deal with it. He imagined himself writing Sebastian up a user manual to take with him on future first dates. He told Sebastian as much when he inquired upon what Tad was thinking.

"You think you're the expert, huh?" Sebastian was coyly dubious. "There's lots of things you don't know about me. Like my favorite color."

"Blue," Tad answered. It was never something that had been explicitly discussed. But Sebastian wore it often and it always looked good on him.

"Fine." Sebastian scrunched up his nose. "Lucky guess. You don't know important things. Like, my deepest darkest fear or who I shared my first kiss with."

"First kisses are important?" Tad fought off a thought-attack of memories that made his intestines cringe with pain. "That's not good news."

"Ugh," Sebastian scowled. "Let's just say anything that happened with Maury doesn't count, okay?"

Tad shook his head, halfway through his second glass of wine. "Wasn't him."

"Oh?" Sebastian raised an intrigued eyebrow. "Go on."

Tad shook his head. "It's  _so_  embarrassing."

"I must know!" Sebastian was bubbly with excited energy. "I will give you…" he thought for a moment, his face falling into a relaxed frown, then popped back up as he moved to undo the watch on his wrist. "I know it's not your style. Gold goes better with your complexion. But you could pawn it. Treat yourself to one of those vintage cameras you like to imagine while we're fucking."

Tad turned the watch over in his hands, running his fingers along rich silver ridges of the band. "Since when do you pay up front?"

"Quit stalling and get on with it, Thaddeus." Sebastian slapped the table. "I'm foaming at the mouth over here."

"Well," Tad's face was already going hot. "For starters, I'd like to say, in my defense: I was very drunk."

Sebastian nodded. "Noted."

"So, yeah," Tad cleared his throat. "You remember Adam Lynch, well, Parrish? From Aglionby?"

"Of course," Sebastian nodded mildly, like this was a segue into the rest of the story and not the entire story itself.

Tad figured the best way to do this was to rip it like a stuck band aid. A band aid that had been holding strong for give or take five years. "I was completely wasted at the senior homecoming party I threw. I was feeling sick and Adam helped me up to my room. And I just, uh, you know...went for it."

Sebastian blinked at him, his grip so tight on the wine glass in his hand —Tad's wine glass, for the record— Tad feared it was ready to bust inside his hand.

"You kissed Adam Parrish?" Sebastian spoke each word stiltedly slow, like he was trying to order food in a foreign restaurant. "Like...on the mouth?"

"Very much so," Tad said, remembering the way Adam had tasted like mint and smelled like motor oil.

"Well," Sebastian composed himself quickly, the wine glass no longer in danger of splashing red liquid and sharp shards of glass all over them. "Congratulations."

Tad thought about letting Sebastian believe it, just for a moment, that he'd had this magical first kiss with his very first crush, someone wantable, someone worthy. If it had been anyone else but Seb, he probably would have. But he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders morosely. "It was horrible. I had a panic attack all over him, a real life gay crisis panic attack, and then he very politely rejected me and then I went into my bathroom to throw up and cry myself to sleep. I didn't even go back down to the party."

"Well, that's sweet." Sebastian's hands were actually cupped together under his chin, like an art nouveau painting. "He took care of you."

"Not really," Tad winced at the long repressed memory. "He never talked to me again. Not that he ever talked to me much before. I think I just, like, really annoyed him."

"Yes, well," Sebastian shrugged grandly. "We all took our turns annoying Adam Parrish, didn't we? Lynch just annoyed him the most and won."

"I suppose," Tad sighed, reclaiming his last glass of wine from Sebastian's side of the table.

He used to be so jealous of Ronan. He didn't understand what it was about him that was so special someone like Adam Parrish had decided to spend the rest of his life with him. People used to talk. Say awful things. They made Ronan into the villain of their narrative, that he had some kind of hold over Parrish, that Adam had just swapped one abuser for another. Tad hadn't known about the extent of Adam's home life until news of that trial that was held against his father got around. He'd been unsurprised, as he knew where Adam came from and it wasn't exactly uncommon for that sort of thing to be going on in those sorts of places. But he couldn't believe the things people said about Adam's relationship with Ronan. Those people sounded more pathetically jealous than Tad was. He saw the pictures of them, saw the way they looked at each other. Not in pictures together, but in the pictures it was clear that had been featuring one of them and been taken by the other. Tad was a photographer. There was no way you could teach a trained model to smile at a camera like that, let alone the average person. Not unless the person holding the camera was someone who made your face light up like you couldn't control how wide your mouth could open. They were in love with each other. That much was obvious.

Tad still didn't get it. Ronan wasn't even that cute. Maybe he was funny or something. Anyway, he didn't really feel that sharp pang of jealousy anymore when he stalked the Lynch family. Maybe a dull ache of seeing a happy, settled couple when he was a lonely, single loser. But it wasn't like he was still sitting around pining for Adam Parrish. Or even Martin, these days.

Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the distraction of having someone else around. Or maybe Tad Carruthers was finally becoming a person. He was in such uncharacteristically high spirits he didn't even complain when Sebastian suggested they needed to dance off the calories they'd just consumed, or remind him that they'd only shared one small fondue plate and a dessert the size of a shot glass. He just let himself happily be pulled into the nearest club and pretended it was normal for Sebastian to shrug off the designer blazer and overshirt he'd been wearing and hand it to the bum who was camped outside, leaving him in just a fitted white t-shirt and skinny dress slacks.

"You look," Tad had to pull him by his belt loop to get his attention. "Very gay."

"Thank you," Sebastian sipped through the straw of his beverage demurely. He nodded at Tad. "So do you. Those chinos, I mean, girl. I look masc compared to you right now."

Tad laughed. How strange was it that the sentiment of something that used to chill his bones, paralyze him with fear, the notion that he could be so different that it was noticeable. For someone to put words to his worst most secret shame, was now something Tad could be so comfortable in the truth of that an acknowledgment of it was merely funny in its pointlessness.

"I just remembered," Sebastian breathed hot into Tad's mouth. He was covered in sweat, the harsh wave he always did to the side of his head soaked through and dripping down the center of his forehead as they careened and juddered through the underground tunnels of the city. "I'm not poor anymore. We could have taken a cab or something."

Tad shrugged, reaching up to wind the limp curl of hair into his finger and let it drop. "Making out on the subway is more aesthetic, though."

Sebastian sighed wantonly against Tad's lips. "You're so right. For once. Can we get married?"

"I mean," Tad chuckled, "If no one better comes along? Sure."

*******

Christmas at The Hawthorne's was already a disaster. He was hiding in one of the upstairs guest bathrooms with Sebastian's younger sister, Lizzie, who'd already been up there, curled up in the bathtub by herself, drinking champagne straight from a very expensive looking bottle.

"Oh," Tad had blustered when he saw her, backing out of the room. "Sorry."

"It's okay, Taddy," Lizzie had taken right up to calling him by this new, incredibly heinous nickname. It was his own fault for getting her such a great gift. He wasn't normally the greatest gift giver and he hadn't had any reason to buy Christmas presents in ages. But he couldn't very well show up to the Hawthorne mansion empty handed when they were opening their home to him to spend the holiday with. "I didn't get anyone anything!" Sebastian had whined through his teeth. "Now I'm going to look bad."

"Well just say they're from you, then," Tad suggested, too anxiety ridden to argue with him.

"What if they're bad presents and no one likes them?" Sebastian had countered. "I can't take the responsibility for that. I know. We'll just say they're from both of us. That's fair, right?"

He'd gotten nice, thoughtful lady gifts for Mrs. Hawthorne: a spa day at an upscale salon in Richmond, Lizzie: a Victoria's Secret giftcard. And then thrown a Hail Mary and sprung for an expensive bottle of scotch for Sebastian the Third. Tad didn't remember much about Sebastian's dad from his time spent around the family as a youth but he must have luckily landed on the right sort of thing. He'd shaken Tad's hand and everything.

"Are you, uh, okay?" Tad winced at how pained his voice was. He so was not in the mood to be doing this right now. The-day-after-Christmas party was overwhelmingly packed with people from his past, parents and children alike, he'd just wanted to find somewhere to escape for a few minutes, splash cool water on his face and catch his breath. It looked like Lizzie had had the same idea, considering the watery black streaks that had dried halfway down her face.

Or she'd been crying.

She sniffed, her strawberry blond curls bobbing with the visible lump in her throat, wiped at the black tracks under her eyes, and beckoned Tad into the tub with her.

"You're a pretty crier," Tad told her, her porcelain face flushed a fetching shade of pink, berry colored lips swollen like bee stings. "So you've got that going for you."

She covered her face with her hand and made a soft gurgling sound through her tears that Tad thought was probably a laugh, so that was good.

"It's stupid," she hiccuped. "I'm being stupid. It's just. My boyfriend, Daryl."

Tad snorted into the bottle of champagne Lizzie had graciously offered him a sip out of. She turned toward him sharply and he just stared at her for as long as it took for him to realize that she wasn't joking and he was going to kill Sebastian.

"Sorry," he shook his head. "I just...didn't know there was anyone actually named Daryl, like, in real life."

"Oh," she sniffed again, nodded once, like this was a normal thing for someone to say. "Yeah. Well. He bailed on the party. And he's being a jerk about it. He's not so great."

"Yeah," Tad sighed, knocking his head back against the marble wall that coated the surrounding area of the tub. "I know all about not so great boyfriends."

"Oh, yes," Lizzie reached out a tentative hand to rest on Tad's bent knee. "Bash told us all about your breakup. How awful."

"Did he now," Tad inclined his head forward.

Lizzie nodded sympathetically. "We're just so glad the two of you found each other when you did."

It was such a sincere sentiment Tad found himself at a loss for words. They were still sitting there, knees-bent, scrunched up in the bathtub, silently passing the champagne bottle back and forth when the door opened and the prodigal son himself appeared, buzzing with nervous energy.

"There you are," he regarded Tad with heady relief. Then he turned his gaze on his little sister. "Lizzie! What are you doing to him? Also, you look terrible. What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" Lizzie shot back haughtily. "He was being nice to me. Unlike you!" She stood up in the tub and wobbled. Tad had to spring up with a surprising amount of speed and grace to steady her before she cracked her head open. The champagne bottle slipped from her hands and smashed against the bottom of the tub. Good thing it was empty. Lizzie abruptly began to sob.

"Ugh!" Sebastian stamped his foot in wild, mare-like impatience. "Give her to me. I'll take her to bed. Tad, I was looking for you because there are some people downstairs who I think would like to see you."

Tad squinted at him. Was he drunk? What the hell was he talking about? "Huh?"

"I told them all about your new famous New York photographer status," Sebastian was bubbling over with self-righteous pride. "Go!"

Tad really wasn't interested in making small talk with Sebastian's parents' friends, but he also didn't want to stay up here and help carry an 18 year old drunk crying girl to bed. He opted for the lesser of two evils and got out of the way.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs he saw Sebastian's mother animatedly chatting up a couple who were still in the midst of taking off their coats when Tad approached them. He could only assume this was what he'd been meant to do. He started his greeting with a polite smile but the sound caught in the back of his throat. The two blank, unimpressed faces staring into his own were, in fact, friends of the Hawthornes. They were also his parents.

Sebastian's mother pressed a delicate hand to his shoulder before making her leave, allowing the three of them to 'catch up'.

"Tad," his father finally said.

"Sir," Tad nodded in reply.

"It seems you've been up to quite a lot in New York." His mother's lips were drawn tight. "Is there a problem? Something we should know about?"

Tad's heart flipped over in his chest. He knew his parents still cared, in their own way, but seeing them in the flesh, hearing the concern in his mother's voice. He blinked back the ridiculous tears pooling in his eyes. "Um, no," he shook his head, a small smile etching its way onto his lips. "Things are going pretty well, actually. I just got my first big photography check, so, that's, um, been exciting."

He was waiting for his parents to ask for more details before he bombarded them with them. Instead his father said, "Then what exactly is the point of all this?"

Tad stilled. "I'm...not sure what you mean, sir."

"Acting out like this," His father leaned forward, hissing with weary disdain. As if Tad were world renowned for unruly behavior. "Running around with the Hawthorne boy, embarrassing us in front of our friends. If you want more money, just ask for it. You don't have to pull stunts like this to get our attention."

The weird thing was, Tad wasn't shocked. It was as if all his irrational pessimism had finally paid off. The shoe he'd been waiting to drop was on the ground. He simply cleared his throat and told his parents very plainly, "I'm sorry if you're embarrassed. Well, actually, I'm not. I didn't even know I'd be seeing you. I was invited here by my friend's family and I'm just trying to enjoy the holiday. That's all."

"I thought you understood that the deal of us putting up with your choices, supporting you financially, was that you weren't going to be out there waving a flag around, especially here, in our home." Tad's father shook his head. "But I suppose I need to spell it out for you. Consider this a warning." He touched the small of his wife's back, who had remained silent through the exchange, though Tad could see shiny tears rimming her lined eyes. "Deb, let's go."

Tad nodded to the both of them. "It was nice to see you, mom. Merry Christmas."

She turned away, breathing out a hard, ragged breath. His father held her upright, glaring at Tad like he'd been the one to cause her distress. Her legs were shaking, but she still managed to walk. Tad figured he could manage the same.

He made it to the top of the stairs when he saw Sebastian, he was shaking his head and complaining about having to look for a hair tie to pull Lizzie's hair back with while she puked, and Tad decided he'd been very strong and stoic and manly up until this point and he was now allowed to completely break down.

"Whoa," Sebastian patted uncertainly at his back. Tad feebly tried to at least keep his sobs quiet, muffled into Sebastian's shoulder. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Tad shook his head. He didn't have the words. His whole body shook. He felt Sebastian's hands gripping his shoulders and pushing him back so he could look at him. Through his watery vision, he saw what he'd until this moment never been able to conjure up the image of in his mind. Long, dark brows peaked downward, slitted nostrils flared out as far as air could push through them. His lips were pulled back tight, like his teeth were barely contained behind them.

Sebastian was pissed.

Great. Just what he needed on top of everything else. More drama.

Tad shook his head, sniffed hard and wiped his face clean. "Whatever you're thinking, don't bother. They already left."

"Good," the word fell out of Sebastian's lips like wrongfully chewed up spoiled food. He grabbed Tad's hand. "We're leaving, too."

Tad was woefully unmotivated to admit it, but he had no choice other than to believe that Sebastian had been right. Greasy diner food cured pretty much everything. From hangovers to lovesickness to middle of the night depressive episodes to unexpectedly running into your parents who hate you at Christmas.

"The iced coffee is actually pretty good," Tad hummed around his straw.

"Blugh," Sebastian recoiled. "It looks like chocolate milk."

"You'll eat the food but not drink the drinks?"

"There are lines, Thaddeus."

Tad rolled his eyes. Poked at the scraps of his hash browns and eggs with his fork. Ketchup was drying on his plate and the smell was starting to ripen and that was always when the magic started to fade.

"Think the party's over by now?"

Sebastian checked the time on his phone and shrugged. "Eh. Could be. Might not wanna be in any hurry, though."

24 hour diners were also way better places to cry in than crowded fancy Christmas parties being thrown in lavish mansions. Tad sighed and went back to uselessly stabbing at his leftover bits of food.

"Hey," Sebastian reached over the table to grab hold of Tad's hand. Tad dropped his fork with a loud metallic clang. An old man in a nearby booth turned to scowl at them and Tad ripped his hand out of Sebastian's grasp, face burning.

"Uh, whoa." He pressed his trembling fingers between his thighs. "Easy there, cowboy."

Sebastian squinted curiously at him, but shook his confusion off a moment later. "I just wanted you to know how sorry I am, Tad. Your parents...I don't even know what to say. They're horrible. You don't deserve to be treated like that."

Tad shrugged off his words. He knew Sebatian meant well, but they just pinged around hollowly inside him. They didn't change anything. "Whatever. It's not your fault."

"Well," Sebastian reasoned. "It kind of is. I mean, I did invite them."

Tad looked up from his crusting plate. "What?"

"I thought they'd be happy to see you," Sebastian spoke imploringly, like he was testifying in court. "Especially since you were doing so well for yourself. All that business with the magazine and your photography. I thought you could talk about that, use it as an icebreaker, and they'd be so proud, and you all could just, you know, work it out."

"Why," Tad spoke slowly, pausing his emotions, waiting to understand before he reacted. "Would you think something like that would be an okay thing to do? Without asking me?"

"I didn't really understand the severity of the situation," Sebastian admitted with a light shrug. "I sort of thought the extended radio silence between you all was overdramatics and mutual bull-headedness. I didn't think…" Sebastian paused, thought better of his words. "I didn't think. Period. I'm sorry. Though in my defense, most of my plans tend to work out without much thought put into them. I was only operating under my own lived experiences."

Tad couldn't believe it.

Well, no, he could. Of course he could. This was Sebastian, after all. Sebastian Alexander Hawthorne IV. Sebastian, who had a perfect life with the perfect family who loved him and were willing to welcome him back into their perfect, loving arms even after all he'd put them through, which had nothing to do with his sexuality. Sebastian was just an arrogant, selfish, spoiled brat who so obviously expected everything to go his way Tad didn't know why he'd even asked why Sebastian hadn't taken his feelings into consideration. Sebastian didn't care about anyone's feelings but his own.

"Pretty big fucking risk to take," Tad scoffed coldly. "My dad was, like, furious. I don't even know if he's going to keep sending me money after this. I'm going to be totally screwed." Even though Tad had always feared this day would come without any external forces coming into play, he wanted Sebastian to feel bad. He should feel bad. This was his fault.

"Well, I still owe you no less than a fuckton of money," Sebastian was quick to remind him. "And if I'm going to keep staying with you then I'd be paying my share of rent, so you'd have that cut in half."

"I'd still have to get a job, Sebastian. I don't have any experience, of like, any kind. And I don't even—. Fuck. Nevermind. This is pointless." God. He just didn't get it. Tad had run out of sympathy. He'd been someone like Sebastian once, but not anymore. He couldn't afford, literally couldn't afford, to be this stupid.

"It's not pointless," Sebastian argued, voice still soft and attempting comfort. "Everything's going to be okay. We'll figure it out."

"How?" Tad spit, laughing humorlessly. "Tell me, Seb. How exactly do you think everything is just going to 'be okay'?"

"Babe," Sebastian reached for him again. "Come on."

"Stop it!" Tad hissed, jerking himself away. "Jesus Christ, Seb. We're in public."

Sebastian tilted his head to an unnaturally owlish angle. "What? Since when are we under a no PDA policy? Did you decide this after you palmed me through my jeans in the middle of a restaurant? Before you were shoving your tongue down my throat in a crowded subway car?"

Tad rolled his eyes. "This is way fucking different. And if you don't get that then I don't even know how to explain it to you."

"Well, I'd like for you to try," Sebastian replied. "Because I'm lost."

Tad was so exhausted. His insides had been squeezed dry and he just didn't have it into him to play some childish who's-wrong-who's-right game with Sebastian right now. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Things were different in New York. Obviously."

"It's not obvious to me," Sebastian insisted. "So by all means, spell it out."

"I don't know why you're acting like this," Tad snapped, all his ability to hold himself together tumbling to rubble. "It's not like we're fucking dating or something."

"Oh," Sebastian paused for only a moment, then went back to fishing for his wallet. "Well, thanks for clearing that up."

"What does that mean?" Tad threw up his hands, no longer caring about the possibility of starting a scene. He was a walking, talking scene. "What do you want me to say?" It was Sebastian that had shown up outside Tad's apartment begging for shelter, Sebastian who had come knocking on Tad's door in the middle of the night, Sebastian who started it all, the flirting, the hooking up, the hanging out. All the while meddling in Tad's personal life and somehow making it more of a mess than it already was. "I don't owe you anything."

"Forget it, Tad." Sebastian threw a small stack of cash onto the table. "Let's just go home."

Sebastian drove them back to his parent's house in silence. Parked the car in the garage in silence. Cut the engine in silence. Opened his door in silence. Paused before he exited the vehicle.

"So, I guess I'm going to stay home for awhile, then."

Tad blinked up at him, unsure of what he was supposed to do with that information. "Okay."

"As in, not come back to New York with you," Sebastian clarified.

Tad nodded. He had expected as much. The thing they had going was inherently temporary. Sebastian didn't need him anymore. And they'd just fought. was really nothing left, there.

"Do you have anything to say?" Sebastian all but snapped, like he was desperate for some kind of emotional reaction. Tad flinched. How was it that he kept tangling himself up in boys who felt the need to control him?

"No?" Tad shrugged. He was so tired of all this. This is why he was a pathetic loner who didn't have any friends. This shit was way too complicated and not nearly worth all the trouble it had caused. The last thing he needed now was Sebastian getting off on some ego trip fueled by Tad's loneliness. "It's not like you're hurting my feelings."

"Yes," Sebastian chuckled at that, maneuvering himself the rest of the way out of the car. "Yes, Tad. You've made that abundantly clear."

*******

Tad was so happy to be back in New York. In his small apartment that was so clean now that it was just him living there. Quiet, too. Peaceful. It had been so awkward playing Escape From Hawthorne Mansion undetected, but he managed to get out early enough in the morning before anyone had woken up and been able to question his motives. He was sure Sebastian would fill them in and they'd all think Tad was the rudest wretch they'd ever deigned to let into their home and that would be the end of that.

He was surprised to refresh his email and see two messages from an unfamiliar email address sitting atop the unread messages in his inbox, though from the context provided he didn't have much trouble piecing together who it was.

_Taddy! Oh my gosh im so sry i was so crazy at the party. :((((((. but i just wanted you to know that i followed ur advice and broke up with daryl!_

Advice? Tad had given her advice? He could not, for the life of him, recall this.

_bash was sooooo pissed at me. i rly hope ur fight wasn't about me he says it wasn't but i feel awful. we're all so certain whatever happened was his fault and we're just hoping you forgive him soon so we can see you again asap. i owe you a coffee date or something! miss youuuuuu!_

_oh and you can text me (i wont tell bash if you do ;) ))))) my numbers in my profile sry this is the only way i knew how to get ahold of you, btw your photography is so cool! can't believe ur gonna be in a magazine ahhhhh i can't wait to see it!_

and in a completely separate email:

_OH THIS IS LIZZIE BY THE WAY!_

Sebastian had more tact than Tad had given him credit for. He felt a pang of  _oh yeah, that happened_. He really wished they hadn't parted on such bad terms. It had just been...a really bad night. Tad was upset for a number of reasons and he'd taken that out on Sebastian.

But on the other hand, Sebastian had been way out of line. He'd acted arrogantly and selfishly to such a catastrophic magnitude and Tad was still mad at him. Really mad at him.

He also had no way of getting ahold of him and attempting to make amends himself. Not that he wanted to. He'd only just realized he did not have Sebastian's phone number. It hadn't been a necessary thing to have when they were living together. What could he do? Text Sebastian's little sister and say oh hey it's me Tad the awkward guy who stayed at your house for a week and dipped as it turns out I don't actually have your brother's phone number because our relationship is super weird but I want to make up from our fight so can you pay along my apologies?

Tad wasn't going to apologize. Sebastian was the one who should apologize. And if he knew where Tad lived then surely he knew his phone number as well or knew of ways to get ahold of it. If he wanted to be friends again, or even be strangers on good terms, then he could be the one to make the first move.

Winter was thawing into Spring. Tad had been moderately okay. No word from his parents good or bad. The money was still steadily coming in, as it always had, every month. One of the NY Mag issues that featured one of Tad's photos had come out. He tried very hard to find something to be upset about but it was pretty much just the coolest thing that had ever happened to him. He was proud of himself. It was just a little boring, not having anyone to share it with. Adam Lynch and 47 other people liked the post about it on Facebook, which was super weird, but whatever. People liked to align themselves with things they thought were worthy of alignment. Having a photo in a famous magazine was somewhere on the totem pole of things that other people could stand to be around you because of. He'd half expected to hear something from one of the Hawthornes, be it Lizzie or her brother. But no, nothing. They'd probably forgotten by now, anyway.

Instead he got a text not from his ex friends with benefits or his estranged parents, but his actual honest to god ex boyfriend, Martin.

_Saw your NY Mag article. Wow. Can't believe I dated a famous photographer :P. So proud of you._

Tad didn't know where to begin with this text. First of all, it wasn't his article. The article had nothing to do with him. It was his photograph, used as a visual aid to go with the article. Second of all, what the fuck? Third of all, gross. And fourth of all, oh my god.

**Thanks** , he texted back coldly. Not on purpose. He just didn't have anything else to say.

_I've wanted to reach out for a long time_ , Martin texted back immediately. What was he doing up? He was a notorious early to bed early to rise person and it was—Tad glanced at his phone's clock—past midnight.

_Been having a really shitty year to be honest. A lot going on. Won't bore you with the details. I know you're busy. But I know I ended things badly between us and I really regret it. Anyway, how are things with that tall, skinny bloke? You still together?_

God it was so annoying when people who weren't British talked like they were. Tad couldn't believe he used to think this quirk of Martin's was cute. He wanted to claw off all the skin on his face.

**No** , Tad texted back. **We're not.** All that stuff with the dish stealing and the fake necking at the club so Tad could fake thrive in front of Martin was such a distant memory it felt like unearthing something inside him for Tad to recall it back vividly to his mind. He hadn't really been thinking all that much about Sebastian lately. He'd just had an episode the other day when he'd been packing away his fall and winter clothes and stumbled upon the old ratty sweater that Sebastian had given him and he had this horrible vision of Sebastian on a date with someone else, telling the story of how he'd slummed it with this totally pathetic boy from high school and they'd started hooking up and it had all been so stupid and the worst part was he still had his favorite sweater and he'd had to have an impromptu cry in the shower, but that was life.

**Sorry to hear about your shitty year** , Tad found himself texting Martin now.  **Aside from the photography stuff, same tbh.**

_Ah_ , Martin replied.  _Sorry to hear things didn't work out with the Burberry model too :P. His loss._

He'd used that emoticon face twice now. What was going on? Tad didn't have anything to lose by trying to find out.

**It'd be nice to get drinks sometime. Catch up. Still haven't got to properly celebrate my debut as a paid photographer :p.**

He could make that face too. Only in lowercase, because that was more casual and cool.

_Absolutely!_ Martin was quick to reply.  _I was thinking the same thing but didn't want to seem too bold. Are you free tonight?_

"Oh," Martin winced at Tad's open eyes. Tad sat up in bed. Martin was rolling down the sleeves of his shirt. "Sorry. Didn't want to wake you."

Tad shrugged. "No problem."

"Tad," Martin sighed. "Listen. Last night...I shouldn't have given you the wrong idea, I'm really not in a place to be in any sort of serious relationship with anyone. I had fun, though."

"Um," Tad was reeling from the reality of what was actually happening right in front of his face. "Okay. Thanks."

Martin nodded once and leisurely made his way out of Tad's apartment.

God. He was such a fucking idiot. Truly the dumbest bitch alive. He'd only agreed to meet up with Martin because he was still sad about the whole sweater episode and he missed Sebastian and Martin was there and while he was not at all any kind of suitable substitute at least he'd be distracting enough to help Tad make it through the night.

Tad felt the pang he'd been feeling since he'd left Henrietta in the middle of the night two days after Christmas, the pang he'd been feeling for months that he'd tried to ignore. It curled around his waist and thorned itself into his side, stabbing him unexpectedly when he moved the wrong way. It was no use. Sebastian had moved on and didn't care anymore. If he did, he would have said something by now. Sebastian wasn't the type of person to be that passive aggressive about not being the first person to reach out after a fight. He wasn't contacting him because he didn't want to, simple as that. Sebastian had been two seasons worth of permanent stains all over Tad's life and Tad had just been nothing more than a blip on his radar, a throwaway character in someone else's story.

He was still having a wonderful time curled up in bed feeling disgusting and worthless and sorry for himself when he heard the strangest noise that took him several minutes to realize was his phone ringing.

His phone ringing? Who rang phones these days?

He wasn't going to answer, pissed he'd gotten out of bed for a goddamn unknown number, but decided he might as well not make the trip a waste and throw the telemarketer on the other end a bone.

"Tad," a voice that sounded a lot like his mother's spoke into the phone. "Is that you, sweetie? It's mama."

"Yeah," Tad's voice croaked, he was about to fucking cry and he didn't know why. Well, he did know why, but it was for embarrassing and childish reasons so he was pretending not to. "It's me."

"It's so good to hear your voice." His mom was crying so he could blame that on why he was too. "I've got some things I need to tell you."

Tad sniffed, wiping at his eyes even though there was no one around to see the tears fall. "Okay."

"Your father and I are getting a divorce. And I'm going back home."

"Home?" Tad found this question to be more pressing than  _divorce?._ "What, you mean like,  _Greece_?"

"Your aunt Donna's taken pity on me. I'm going to stay with her for a little while until I figure out what I want to do as a more permanent solution. But she wanted me to make it very clear to you that she would love to have you come too."

"I," Tad stuttered on his words. "I—I don't know. I'd have to think about it."

"Of course," his mother agreed. "Maybe I could come up to New York for a little while beforehand." His mother's voice broke in a way that Tad felt like it was inappropriate for him to hear. "I want to see you."

"Where are you staying right now?" The reality of the word divorce was finally sinking in. "Oh my God, mom, are you okay?"

"The Jefferson hotel in Richmond, for the time being," his mother replied, the characteristic breezy lilt back to her voice. "And I'm fine, darling. _I_  left  _him_. I've got a fantastic lawyer. Rosie Hawthorne recommended him."

Tad's head spun at the mention of Sebastian's mother. They were still talking? Of course they were. They'd been friends since high school.

"That's good," Tad told his mother honestly. "I'm...happy for you, mama."

"She mentioned you and her son had some sort of falling out over Christmas," his mother spoke carefully, like she was stepping over mousetraps. "I hope it wasn't because of what your father and I—" she cut off abruptly, unable to finish.

Tad was about to say no, assuage her guilt, but there was really no reason to. She was his mother and he loved her and his heart was nearly pounding out of his fucking chest at the promise of having her back in his life, but she'd still done something horrible to him. Something he didn't deserve. And he was mad at her. And he had nothing to apologize for.

"Yeah," he sighed into the phone. "It was."

"Tad," his mother choked off a sob. "I've made so many mistakes."

"Me too," Tad told her, not to make her feel better, but because it was true. He thought about the extremely unsettling Facebook invitation he'd gotten earlier in the week. The one that had made his blood curdle that was now thrumming it through his veins like liquid lightning. "But I think we've got nothing to lose by trying to fix them."

*******

Tad thought the very concept of a five year high school reunion was just about the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of. When he'd gotten the notification on Facebook and seen that Cheng was the operations behind the whole thing, he'd wondered if the entire event was all an elaborate ploy just so Adam Lynch could make his predestined return to the dregs of Henrietta, Virginia and shower all the unworthy peasants with excess money that he made from his fancy engineer job and everyone could take turns kneeling at his feet and kissing his class ring.

That would have actually been a lot more fun than what it actually was, which was a five year high school reunion. A packed dining hall filled with all of his least favorite people. But he couldn't let that distract him. He had things to do that he was using this event as an excuse for.

A couple people stopped Tad to congratulate him on the magazine thing. He smiled politely and graciously accepted compliments and shook hands and pretended to listen to what other people were telling him they now did with their boring lives. He kept craning his neck up and around, trying to see over the heads of the much taller boys around him. He locked eyes with a strange looking guy he didn't recognize. He looked comically uncomfortable in his suit, his unkempt dark beard and wildly curly hair more fitting for a Game of Thrones character than an Aglionby alumni. He smirked at Tad, then smacked the back of the guy in front of him. And then Tad was eye to eye with the man he'd drunkenly kissed when he was seventeen years old. And he was waving and making his way over to him. Wonderful.

"Tad!" Adam looked unnervingly happy to see him. "I'm so glad you're here. I was really hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you."

For a moment, Tad's heart soared. It was all finally happening. He was going to tell Tad that he was madly in love with him and they would henceforth begin planning to run away together. But then he realized that the rugged lumberjack looking dude beside him was Ronan fucking Lynch, who was still alive and present and his husband, and then his eyes flicked right to another tall, dark haired boy, the very tall, dark haired boy he'd been looking for, and Tad's heart did a thing that wasn't even describable with human words. So he cut Adam Lynch off mid sentence and said, "Hey. I'm sorry. I can't talk right now." And shoved right past him.

"My parents are getting a divorce," Tad was out of breath by the time he got to him. He looked incredible, which was really unfair. His black hair was gelled to the side, as usual, but the front bit was longer than Tad remembered and finger waved to perfection. Then there were the suspenders, which would have looked stupid on anyone else, but rendered Sebastian into some kind of Edwardian rock god. "I started talking to Martin again. We slept together. And I miss you."

Sebastian blinked at him, and for a moment Tad thought he'd made the most embarrassing mistake of his life, leagues beyond drunkenly kissing Adam or accepting that booty call from Martin, but then Sebastian's face melted into something that was so heart wrenchingly familiar that Tad didn't really care if Sebastian just told him to fuck off and leave him alone. That little piece of him that Tad had been missing so much, just having it back for even one second, would have made the whole trip out here worth it.

"I like the last of those sentences the most." The corner of Sebastian's lip turned upward. "I really didn't expect to see you here." He paused, seemingly weighing his thoughts, then spoke. "I wouldn't have come."

It stung, but Tad had things to say and he wasn't going to let the fear of heartbreak and rejection shake him. "I'm sorry. About everything. I was upset about my parents and a bunch of other insecure bullshit and I overreacted."

Sebastian nodded casually but his eyes betrayed him, Tad could tell the way they relaxed just so at the edges, smoothing out the tiny crinkles that formed when Sebastian was intensely focused or confused or otherwise malcontent. "I'm sorry, too." He looked at Tad briefly then looked away. "I was acting as if things were a certain way and they weren't. And it was completely unfair for me to expect anything from you when you didn't even know. And I shouldn't have contacted your parents without asking. I know you think I was just being an arrogant prick but I was really just thinking of you. Stupidly and ignorantly thinking of you, but still."

A very hard lump had formed in Tad's throat and he really didn't think he could swallow it down and finish the rest of this ridiculous mission but he remembered how brave his mother had been, leaving his father when he was the sole source of the lifestyle she'd grown accustomed to living, uncertain whether she'd be left with anything to live on for herself at all in the end, all for Tad. She'd done it for him. To try and make better what she'd bruised. Was it a magical fix? No. Did it change the past? No. But she was still trying. And so he forced himself to swallow and clear his throat and speak.

"Here's the thing," Tad said. "I've got something I want to tell you. It's very important. The most important thing you could ever tell anyone. And I told it to someone once before, and I meant it, but I wish I hadn't, because they didn't deserve to hear it. I think you do, though. So, here it is. I love you."

"Wow," Sebastian murmured, though he didn't sound entirely surprised. Maybe a little shaken, but not at all shocked. "That's a pretty big one. I don't know if I have anything worthy enough to trade for it."

"It's not a secret," he told Sebastian, his heart pumping wildly in his chest. Then he reached up to grab that stupid hot bird face between both of his hands and kissed him.

"This is very romantic—" Sebastian told him inbetween kisses.

"And I'm swooning inside—"

"But I'm trying to act cool."

"You're doing a great job," Tad told him, before pushing forward to kiss him again. "Although I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter." Another kiss. "Just out of curiosity." And another. "If you feel the same way or anything like that."

"Oh," Sebastian mumbled almost absent mindedly into Tad's lips. "Yeah, I love you, too."

"Good," Tad sealed the word with another peck. "That works out well for the both of us, then."

"Funny that," Sebastian remarked into Tad's mouth. "But just so we're clear on one last thing, you do know that we're making out in a room full of all our closest peers, right?"

Tad nodded. He realized something over the last year and it was this: Happiness, for him, was not a state of being to strive toward achieving but a moment to learn how to appreciate. If he could figure out how to do that, he'd be the happiest person alive. He felt like it, in this moment, kissing Sebastian smack dab in the middle of their five year high school reunion. He hoped Adam was watching. He hoped everyone was. Not because he wanted to make anyone jealous or be the cause of any controversy, but because he wanted everyone to know what was happening right here in front of their very own undeserved eyes.

Tad loved someone and that someone loved him back. They were not using each other for anything, there was nothing one could want from the other, except the person themselves. How crazy was that? How mind bogglingly lucky was he that he was existing in the same time and space as Sebastian Alexander Hawthorne IV? The boy who he got to kiss whenever he wanted? Did people understand what was happening right now? How awesome it was?

"Did you see Lynch?" Sebastian whispered into his ear when the kissing had stopped and they were waiting on drinks at the open bar. "Talk about a downgrade. I think he was hotter with the whole bad boy buzzcut thing he used to play up, don't you think?"

Tad shrugged, utterly disinterested. "I've never thought Ronan Lynch was hot. But to each their own, I suppose."

*******

"I just don't get it," Adam murmured, scrolling through the large album of photos that depicted Tad and his boyfriend on an extravagant vacation in Greece. He frowned. "I don't like Sebastian for Tad."

Ronan was rubbing his thighs raw with his scratchy beard, which was one of Adam's favorite sensations. "Are you really gonna obsess over Carruthers while I'm trying to blow you?"

"No," Adam pouted, because not even the most puzzling of romantic mysteries could tear him away from his nightly blowjob. "I'm about to come all up in that beard," he promised lazily. "I just think it's really weird. Tad is so...sensitive."  _And desperate_ , he thought, but didn't say out loud. "And Sebastian is such a creep! What's he doing with Tad?"

Ronan growled in frustration and sat up on his knees. "You know," he said, surprisingly thoughtful. "People used to say the same thing about us."

That pulled Adam away from his dazed scrolling. He startled so much he almost accidentally 'liked' something. "What?"

"Not too long after we started dating," Ronan shrugged. "People were saying all kinds of fucked up shit. That you were, like, my bitch. That you were just so lonely and depressed after all the drama with your parents and I was just some psycho predatory gay swooping in to take advantage of that. That I was the one knocking you around now."

Adam blinked at his husband like he didn't know who he was looking at. Bile stirred in his stomach. "How do you even know about this?"

"I had to go to the goddamn  _school_ ," Ronan spat, like the word was a curse. "Because Matthew got in a fucking fight over it. It was an all out brawl. Parents were threatening to press charges. He split that Mirchandani kid's head wide open."

"Peter?!" Adam's heart leapt into his throat. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Peter,  _the Peter_ , the soft artistic sophomore who'd been nothing but stammering and blushes and big brown puppy dog eyes, had been saying things like that? He couldn't even imagine Peter throwing barbed words, let alone punches. The boy walked around with an invisible flower crown on his head at all times.

"Yeah," Ronan nodded, then took in Adam's slack jawed horror and shook his head. "Oh. I mean, no. He wasn't the one who started the fight. He'd stepped in to try to stop it, but Matthew was in berserker mode and knocked him into some lockers...I don't really remember, exactly. But his parents got over it. I made Matthew take them some of my mixed fruit crisps when he went over to their house to apologize."

"Mmm," Adam stretched out luxuriously in bed. "Love those crisps. You never make me those crisps anymore."

"Oh," Ronan lifted his weight off Adam's flagging erection, ever the relentless piece of shit. "I'll go do it right now."

"Fuck you," Adam grumbled, reaching out to pull his husband back down on top of him. Their mouths met messily and their hips rocked together and his phone and the romantic mysteries it contained and any past useless Henrietta gossip were very quickly forgotten.

*******

"I'm just saying," Thomas Whittaker breathed out through a long stream of smoke. "I think it's a little sad I'm halfway through my college career and I have yet to have one homosexual experience." He pointed the glowing tip of his cigarette at the hunched over figure of Donovan Yates. "And I think it's super fucked up that you don't want to help me."

Donovan didn't even look up from his accounting textbook. "I don't date smokers." He'd been extremely annoyed ever since Whitt had picked up the habit a few months back. Peter, on the other hand, knew it was a phase like all Whitt's phases: veganism, the Trotsky thing, and now this. He'd get over it soon enough and Peter didn't see a reason to give him fuss about it. But Donovan took personal offense. Like he did to most things Whitt did.

"I'm not asking for a date!" Thomas stubbed his cigarette out into a half empty can of PBR. "I'm asking for one night of intense unbridled passion between two dudes who love and respect each other enough to have sex even though they're not gay."

"Yeah," Donovan nodded. "Cause having sex with a dude is real straight."

"You're so close minded!" Whitt rocked where he sat on Peter's bed. "Sexuality is a spectrum! Fluidity is the future!"

"I just don't understand," Donovan finally looked up from his homework to hold Whitt's indignant gaze. "What makes you think if I was going to have a homosexual experience with anyone, I would choose you."

Whitt's mouth dropped open. Peter slid his face as deeply as he could into his library copy of As I Lay Dying. He wasn't getting in the middle of this. He knew things that others did not and it wasn't his place to speak on the matter at all. "They'll figure it out eventually," his boyfriend had told him once, about a month into knowing the lot of them. "Just let 'em tire themselves out."

Speaking of the handsome devil, it was he who bounded into Peter's bedroom like the golden savior he was, effectively snuffing out Whitt and Van's argument for the moment. He was wearing the WHERE TO NOW, ST. PETER? shirt that he'd found in the 99 cent bin of their hometown's GoodWill the summer after senior year. He and the rest of the boys found this uproariously hilarious and had decided they would share their treasured find between the three of them. Peter thought it was all  _too much_ , and frankly embarrassing, but he quietly allowed it, anyway.

"Hey guys," he chirped, sweaty from his evening workout and beaming like the sun. "What'd I miss?"

"Donovan won't have sex with me," Whitt reported flatly.

"Aw," he pouted sympathetically at Whitt. "Why not?"

"Look," Whitt turned back to Van. "If the smoke bothers you that much I'll just brush my teeth beforehand—"

"Your whole room smells like smoke," Van pointed out.

"I'll Febreeze! I'll light candles!"

"Thomas," Van sighed, a note of pleading sincerity in his voice. "Come on, man."

"Alright." Whitt held up his hands. "I'm just gonna ask. Is it because I'm white?"

"Hey," Peter gently set down his book and greeted his boyfriend with a tired smile. He crawled into bed with the rest of them, perching himself rightfully in Peter's lap and treating him to a nice, warm kiss on the mouth. Whitt and Van's squabbling faded into barely there background noise. Peter cupped his face with his hands and sighed into the lips he'd grown to love. It had finally been enough kisses that Peter had lost count, but he still savored each one as something precious, something he'd never thought he'd be privileged enough to have. There were people out there who had no idea how phenomenal kissing was. He used to be one of those people. He mourned for them, for his past self, and refused to let their agony go unrepresented by making sure to kiss the person he was allowed to kiss as much as physically possible.

"Look, they're being gross now," Whitt scoffed. He didn't need to look to know he was tugging on Van's shirt sleeve and herding him out of the room. He checked anyway, just to make sure he was right. He was.

"Are you guys gonna be loud?" Van shot the two of them a long-suffering glance. His room was the closest to theirs and he was the one who so often was forced to bear the brunt of auditory witness to the unsavory acts that took place there.

"Uh," Peter winced, trying to ignore the rough hands on his hips and warm lips on his neck. "No?"

"My walls are thicker," Whitt reminded him coolly. "And much farther away. With the door shut, you can like, barely hear anything."

Van looked heavenward, possibly for guidance, possibly for strength, and then back down to Whitt. "Go brush your teeth."

"On it," Whitt slid out of the room, only pausing to throw his other two best friends a satisfied smirk. "Night boys. When you see me tomorrow, I'll be a new man."

"Use protection!" Peter called out to Van. Van slammed the door behind him in response.

"So," his boyfriend raised two thick blonde eyebrows at him. "That's happening."

Peter shrugged noncommittally. "We'll see."

He leaned down to kiss the aging scar that ripped down the left side of Peter's forehead and cut through his eyebrow, as was tradition. He frowned at the sight of it, still uncomfortable with the shame from being the cause. "Sorry," he whispered into Peter's skin, and his whole body seemed to absorb it, the soft tenor of his voice vibrating inside him.

"Not forgiven," Peter reminded him gently, eyes closing in dangerously blissful reverence. "You still have to be my boyfriend."

Matthew Lynch laughed, and it was the most disorienting sound, the gust of wings flapping and sweet milk being stirred into coffee. Everything about him was like that. Resplendently nonsensical, vivid and bold, thrown together in broad strokes, like something from a dream. "Lucky me."


End file.
